


~ Magnificat of the Damned: Book III.  Fire ~

by Spiced_Wine



Series: The Arc Of Fire [2]
Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Drama, Erotica, Gay Sex, Graphic Sex, Grief, Incest, Kink, M/M, Moresomes, Multi, Passion, Rape, Slash, Threesomes, Torture, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-16
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-24 16:23:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 75
Words: 347,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/265505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiced_Wine/pseuds/Spiced_Wine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They had been damned for their pride.<br/>Damned for their passions.<br/>Damned by the Valar and by Morgoth Bauglir.<br/>Hated and envied by both.<br/>~~~<br/>Reborn into an older world and freedom, they had discovered that the  jealousy of Gods does not fade, and that damnation has an agelong reach.<br/>~~~<br/>Young Túrin grows in Imladris, while in dark Angmar, the Mouth of Sauron  feeds his ambitions with unspeakable acts. Coldagnir the Balrog begins  to learn what freedom is, in New Cuiviénen, the Noldor's pride and passions battle for supremacy.<br/>~~~</p><p> </p><p>  <em>Every inner eye in the encampment was bent on the drama unfolding to  the south, but Fëanor's mind seemed to focus all of them like a lens. There was no sound. This was the center. Fëanor's eyes were blank and  blazing with impossible, unearthly light.</em></p><p> </p><p>~~~</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ~ The White Light of Madness ~

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I merely borrow from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. My stories are written purely for pleasure, and no money is made from them. However the original characters of Vanimórë Gorthaurion, Elgalad Meluion, Tindómion Maglorion, Coldagnir, the Dark Prince AU of Tolkien's universe, and the plotlines surrounding them are © to Sian Lloyd-Pennell. 2004-2011 and may not be used, archived or reproduced without my permission.

 

**The White Light Of Madness.**

The gathered wood crackled with blue flame, dessicated to tinder-dryness by the cold.  
They had halted at last, although Orodreth had not wanted to, had desired to press on.

“There is snow coming, my lord,” one of the men said. “And we need to tend the horses.”

It was a hasty bivouac, Orodreth having ordered only his own tent raised, for he did not intend to linger. Wine-skins and dried food were handed around, but the captives, hands still bound, were offered nothing. Guards stood behind them, spears trained on their backs. They were silent. There was no need for audible conversation anyhow, and a remark by Celegorm had earned him a warning nudge with a spear-butt, at which he had cursed but said nothing more after his brother and Finrod silently, furiously remonstrated with him.

Maglor could hear voices around him, see figures passing back and forth. He looked to one side, to his son, then to Celegorm and Finrod beyond. It seemed they were not to be released. Not yet, and perhaps not at all. He could see the same knowledge in the others' faces.

On that ride, he had felt his father's emotions like a fire at his back. He felt them now. Fëanor had been shocked to the core at the realization his own sons' had believed him capable of sacrificing them. They had all misjudged him, but how not? Fëanor had killed in pursuit of his jewels.

_Adar,_ he thought, as he had since the moment Fëanor had made his choice. _I Thank Ilúvatar I was wrong. Not for me, but for thee, for thine own sake._

There had been no answer save the love that was in itself the answer, but Glorfindel was there in his mind, and Maedhros, Curufin, Amrod and Amras. Fingolfin too reached out, and all assured him that Orodreth would never get to the outflow of Gaear Gwathluin and certainly not to Valinor.

And then it was there, around him like a fleece woven of flame, within him like a draught of emberwine and more comforting, more potent than both: his father's presence. Celegorm felt it too. Maglor saw his head lift. Their eyes met. In the cold-streaming night it was like sudden shelter, a bonfire more steady and more warming than the campfires shredded by the winds of the coming storm.

_There is nothing,_ Fëanor's voice was clear and dark with pain, _nothing in this world that is more precious to me than my sons. Hold fast._

_Oh, father._ Maglor's heart formed a fist in his breast.

~~~

“There is snow coming,” Dana murmured.

“From the south,” Glorfindel nodded and looked at her. She raised her brows, a smile curving her mouth, secret, knowing.  
“Yes. It is coming off the sea on strong winds,” she said, “Milder air. It will collide with this cold air, and – ” her hands opened.

“A blizzard,” he ended.

“A mother of a blizzard,” Dana agreed. “Come, then.” And she reached out a hand to Coldagnir. “And thou.”

“Why dost thou do this?” Glorfindel asked. “Or is that a foolish question?”

“Very foolish.” She laughed as at a loved child. “I am thy mother, am I not? The mother of all Children of Arda, and any who swear on me are bound to me. I feel a responsibility toward thee, let us say. And there is one more thing: when we return I will take Borniven with me for a time.”

Glorfindel frowned. “I will not gainsay thee, but for what purpose? He is insane.”

“He tried to use a consecrated dagger to kill,” she said. “It came from my temple. Ah, no. I do not mean to sacrifice him.” A gurgle of laughter came at that. Dana could seem a mother, a girl, a queen, from one moment to the next. “He shall learn some few things. I have spoken to Rosriel. He is, or was, of her following, and she agrees.”

Glorfindel had never seen Dana's temple. Vanimórë had, long ago, and both knew it was only called a temple for convenience's sake. It was a place where women went when Dana called them, a sanctuary more than a temple, although there were sacrifices, too. The Mother was owed blood at times.

“Very well.” Glorfindel took her hand and Coldagnir, who had been silent since the oath, clasped her other. “Let us go.”

~~~

“Fëanor.”

Fingolfin let the tent flap fall. The winter night had come down, and Fëanor had not reappeared since the morning. This was unlike him, for there had been much do do in the churned wake of Orodreth's departure. Yet perhaps Fëanor, in choosing life over the Silmaril, had done enough to prove himself to the Noldor.

Few of Finrod's people had left. Whatever they might think privately, Finrod had not publicly forgiven Celegorm, and his song-duel with Manwë and Námo was too recent, too astonishing, for anything to weigh in the balance against it. Finduilas had emerged from her shock to call a council of Finrod's people with Aegnor and Angrod. A grave, warm-hearted woman whom had known a cruel death, she had a strong will under her slender fairness. The shame of her father's treachery, rather than crushing her, had stiffened her spine, unfurled banners of color across her cheeks and lit a determined spark in her eyes.  
No, Fingolfin was not concerned that Finrod's people would elect to leave, but he was, despite Glorfindel's reassurances worried about Orodreth's captives. They all were. Gil-galad had been with Fanari, whose fear had turned to rage. She had seen her son ride away to fight against Sauron's forces in Eregion, and later to Mordor. The thought of losing him now to a traitorous Elf was well nigh insupportable.

Fëanor's hair was unbound, covering his face and spilling onto the skins that draped the floor. He did not move. Fingolfin went on one knee before him.

“Fëanor,” he repeated.

Slowly, Fëanor raised his head, and Fingolfin jerked back.

“What art thou doing?” he whispered, his voice shocked from him at the sight of Fëanor's eyes.

“Orodreth has a Silmaril,” Fëanor said hard and bitter as tempered steel. “Let him learn what the Silmarilli truly are.”

“Art thou mad? He may hurt his hostages!” Fingolfin caught his brother's wrists, and was drawn to his feet as Fëanor rose.

“He is not thinking of them. All he is thinking of is what he could become.”

Fingolfin pulled away. He did not doubt that Fëanor was in some way linked to the Silmarilli. Only Morgoth had ever possessed them while Fëanor lived, and they had burned him, it was said. Fingolfin knew it to be true, for he had seen Morgoth's hands himself, the marks about his brow where the iron crown banded his head, as if the flesh forever scorched and healed and scorched again. Even with their creator dead, the Silmarilli had been artifacts of peril. Now Fëanor lived so, in a way, did the jewels.

“Be careful,” he cautioned.

“ _Careful?_ Orodreth put a knife to Celegorm's throat. He drew blood! He has taken two of my sons, a grandson and a nephew. I cannot go with them, but what I can do, I _will._ ” He pushed back his hair, magnificent and frightening in this mood, but slowly that terrible light faded from his eyes, or rather, thought Fingolfin, was contained.

“Didst thou believe it also?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Ai, Hells! Even thou? Even after this?” He loosed one hand, spread the fingers to show the mark upon it.

_We need no deeper bonds between us, half-brother in blood, full brother in heart,_ he had said, silently. _But dost thou not know I would give my life for thee?_

“Yes, even after that, brother. I believe thou wouldst die for me and that...astonishes me. But the Silmarilli obsessed thee.”

Fëanor backhanded him, then as his hand swung back, caught Fingolfin's tunic and dragged him into a brutal kiss. There was rage in it, shattering pain.

_Thou and my sons. Eru help me!_ It sounded like a command. Fingolfin's head rang with the force of the blow and his foreshortened punch took Fëanor in his hard gut. It thrust him back but did not take his breath.

“If thou wilt not help me, get hence!” he snarled.

“Do not use thy guilt as an excuse to – ” At the last moment, Fingolfin remembered the too-close ears, doubtless focused on this tent.  
 _Get me in thy bed! I believed in thee until Araman. I felt thy soul this day. But when it came to **that** choice, I truly did not know. And neither did thy sons!_

White teeth glinted. It was no smile. _Thou knowest now._

Fingolfin spun on one foot, threw back the inner flap, then glanced back.

“Thy people need thee,” he said, calm because he had to be, because his instinct was to comfort his brother, and if Fëanor could not accept comfort without wanting more then neither, Fingolfin admitted, could he. There were too many reasons that could not happen, and at this moment their blood-relationship seemed the least important of them.

“Do they?”

“Yes. Now come. I felt thy death before we ever came to Lake Mithrim. I had to affect ignorance to lead my people. Maglor and Celegorm, Tindómion and Finrod are _not dead._ And they will not die!” With impatience birthed of pity, which Fëanor would not accept, and love, which he would transmute into sex if given the chance, Fingolfin came back, poured wine and proferred it.  
“Show thyself. Thou hast possibly done the one thing that would bind the Noldor to thee, that would banish their doubts. Now let them see thee.”

“I do not need lessons in kingship from thee!”

“In fact, thou dost,” Fingolfin disagreed. “Thou didst not rule long. There is more to it than war. Thy people, thy sons', followed for love of thee, but thou hast to return it, not simply accept their love and loyalty as thy due.”

Fëanor stared at him, threw off the wine, and then with a swift move, caressed the cheek where his blow had landed. It was an unsettling, tender gesture.

“Do I truly do that?” he wondered, as if to himself. “Every-one seems to believe it, at least. So be it. Thou hast the greater experience. And thou art too lovely to mar.” He leaned forward and kissed where his blow had landed.

It was an apology, Fingolfin knew. He moved behind his brother, began to comb and braid the cloud of hair, feeling it flow, strong and silken as a river, through his hands.

“They cannot die,” Fëanor said. “I could not bear it. I will not permit it.”

“They will not. Trust those whom have gone.” Fingolfin closed his fingers over those hard shoulders. “We should hear news soon.”

Few had retired to their tents. Glorfindel had informed the encampment that a blizzard would be sweeping across them, and people were making ready for it, but many stood about fires which snapped in the strengthening wind. Fëanor walked from group to group, spoke to Finduilas, Aegnor and Angrod, Rosriel and Gil-galad, then crossed to Fanari's tent. Her parents were with her, and Fëanor promised that her son and the others would return safely. If he could have willed it so, they would be here now. And his will was indeed working, burning through the Silmaril that Orodreth held in his hands.

_Now, learn what it truly is._ He smiled with pitiless hate.

~~~

Orodreth had seen it before of course. He had seen all three, when Fëanor was wont to wear them set in a circlet, which happened less and less. That he was possessive of them as a lover was an open secret, that the Valar desired them was scarcely less so. But now, he understood why Fëanor would not give them up to be broken.  
Or he thought he did.

He was impatient to go on, but when he was persuaded they must make a halt, he took the opportunity to look at the jewel. So easily gained! He might have laughed, had he not been so entranced. It sat in his palm, illuminating the interior of the tent like a lamp, and he gazed at the minute exquisite faceting of it. It was disconcerting, even eerie, how like Fëanor's eyes the gem was, as if it were somehow sentient, with a living spirit behind it. He scoffed briefly at the notion, before losing himself in fascination. The Silmaril seemed to seize the air that brushed its surface and explode it into a mist of diamond. He covered it with his other hand and peered into the cave made by his palms, watching its internal glow. It was oddly hot and he drew his gloves on again, indulging in images of it blazing above his own brow, while he sat upon a throne, the source of power and might.

He did not hear the slap of the rising wind against the tent walls as his dreams enlarged. The Silmaril welcomed him, he thought, was pleased that he owned it, and revealed to him what it truly was. With it, he could be _anything._

“Sire,” one of his lord's said, pulling him reluctantly and angrily from his absorption. “A blizzard is coming up from the south.”

Orodreth closed his fingers possessively around the jewel, but the light gouted through his gloved fingers and he saw the man's eyes upon it.

“Well?” he demanded.

“What are thine orders, Sire?”

Orodreth looked down. He remembered he had wanted to reach the great river, follow it down to the estuary. Yes. He had to do that of course: get away from New Cuiviénen. The Teleri would take him, sail him in triumph and glory into the Bay of Eldamar. He would stand at the prow with the Silmaril in his hand like a star, and then –

“Sire?”

His head snapped up. “ _What,_ Dúrech?”

“What are thine orders?” The warrior looked at him strangely.

“No-one is following us.”

“The outriders saw no-one, Sire, but now it is dark, and we cannot know what Glorfindel can do now he is Vala, and the Mother...”

Orodreth waved his free hand dismissively.  
“Is it snowing now?”

“No, Sire, but it is on the air, I expect it soon, we should prepare and sit it out.”

“There is no need. _This_ will act as a beacon. We go on. Give the orders.”

“Sire, it is not wise.”

“Give the orders _now._ ”

Dúrech's eyes blazed, but he bit his tongue and bowed and went out into the night. Turning, he saw Orodreth open his hand, and stare again at the gem. His face was bleached white by the radiance.

~~~

It was Dúrech whom had at last given the hostages wine. As the light failed and deepened and Orodreth did not emerge from his tent, his people began to whisper. They could see the tent, for it glowed, and they knew that their lord had taken the Silmaril from its casket. While many agreed that the jewel should be taken back to Valinor, they also remembered the ruin that had followed the Oath of Fëanor, and murmured that Orodreth should keep the Silmaril hidden, should not look at it or touch it.

At last, when even the guards were shifting uneasily, Dúrech came and with a harried glance, called for a wineskin, holding it to allow the hostages to drink. They should have been released, but either they were forgotten or –  
 _No._ He had refused to follow that thought to its conclusion, but now, as Orodreth came toward the group who watched him silently, he knew his fears were not groundless.

“See thou this?” he asked rhetorically, holding the jewel aloft.

“Yes, it is not a sight I have seen very often,” Celegorm said with quick viciousness. “A rat stealing jewelry. Thou knowest not what the Silmarilli truly are, _thief!_ ”

There was a moment of stunned silence before Orodreth moved, slapping Celegorm savagely across the face.

“Stop!” Finrod cried, and Maglor and Tindómion moved forward.

“Be quiet, thou!” Orodreth barked at his brother, and then, “That was not wise, Fëanorion. Not wise at all.” His free hand went to his dagger.

“My lord!” Dúrech protested. “Thou didst swear an oath!”

Orodreth brandished the Silmaril at him. His eyes caught the light queerly. Flecks of snow drove before his face and the gem burned them gold.

“Thinkst thou I fear breaking an oath with _this_ in my possession?”

“Thou wilt doom us all! I heard what Fëanor said, and the Mother!”

“Step back from me or be damned!”

“My lord, no! I cannot let thee – ”

Dúrech stiffened and then crumpled to his knees. One of the guards uttered a sound of surprise and denial. The blood on the knife gleamed like pitch.

“Thou art the one whom is damned,” Finrod said with terrible sorrow, and his brother looked at him and smiled a blank smile, then stepped toward him.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, wolf-howls rose into the darkness. There were sounds of confusion on the fringes of the camp: voices, weapons clashing, snarls.

Orodreth's head jerked up.  
“Come! Follow me! Leave them to the wolves! Farewell, _brother._ Let me give thee a parting gift.”  
He stiffened his wrist and whirled on Celegorm. He wanted to see Finrod's face when his lover died, just a glimpse, just for a moment...

There was a burst of intense light and Orodreth screamed in agony. The Silmaril tumbled from his hand, pulsing like a wrathful heart and rolled across the packed snow. He wailed again, scrambling after it. The guards, appalled, hesitated and even as the hostages span to face them, arrows sprouted from above their gorgets. They were thrown back, dead before they struck the ground, and Celegorm had no time even to summon surprise as he felt his bonds cut. Gloved fingers brushed over his cheek and he looked into a pair of thickly-lashed eyes made black by the white song of the jewel. They were, he knew, deep blue in daylight, and long blanched of all sanity.

“Hello, lovely Celegorm,” Eluréd said. “Perhaps thou shouldst get a weapon.” He smiled blindingly and nocked another arrow, sending it into a warrior racing toward them. “We may be a little outnumbered,” he added, blowing a kiss to Finrod. “Good sport, though.”

~~~

  


 


	2. ~ A Storm of Power ~

  
~ Eluréd and Elurín knew Dana. She was spoken of among the Avari and the Men of the East, and went by many names. The twins called her 'Mother,' and when she came, which was not often, they would curl against her as if they were children, and perhaps, for that time, she was Nimloth as they remembered her, stroking their hair and singing to them in the rich, antique tongue of Doriath. To Daeron, she was the only mother he had ever known.

After the Solstice, sated and calm, they were preparing to make their way back to Dor Calen, when Dana walked into their small camp and asked them to remain for a time, and to watch the Noldor.

“There is a place I know where thou may set up a comfortable camp,” she had said. “The Noldor are not likely to move far until the spring. They have many plans to occupy them.”

With a bright smile Eluréd said: “Why not?” But Daeron murmured: “Why, lady?”

“Certain things will happen soon,” she said. “Among the _Golodhrim._ It might be well if thou art close.”

They did not ask her anything more. The winter troubled them little, and when Dana lead them further up the coast, they settled themselves, sometimes going quite close to the Noldor encampment, until the Mother told them the time had come.

~~~

Orodreth had sent warriors to the rear to ensure that no-one followed, but even they did not see the twins and Daeron, and when dusk came down with the promise of snow, the three moved swiftly, but not as swiftly as the wolves.  
The men, warriors and captives alike, scattered to fight or seek shelter, losing one another in the confusion.

To most Elves, wolves were creatures of the Dark; that belief had sprung from Draugluin, sire of the werewolves of Angband, and Carcharoth. Those two had not indeed been wolves, but dark spirits who took wolf-shape and mated with true wolves. Sauron himself could go in the guise of a wolf, and he had gathered these werewolves about him in Tol-in-Gaurhoth.

In their long journey into the east of the world, Daeron and the twins had come to know the ways of the wolf-packs, and that not all were evil. Eluréd and Elurín even came to have a certain affinity with them, though they had been raised on tales of dread Carcharoth whom had bitten off Beren's hand and the Hunting of the Wolf, when Huan, the warhound of Celegorm had been slain. The twins hunted wolves as they hunted all animals, not with hate or greed, but for what the beasts provided. They respected them and knew that they rarely attacked men. Yet these were, and they saw that not all were grey wolves such as roamed the lands. Some were huge creatures, dark almost to black; Fell-wolves out of the rough pine-clad hills at the feet of the mountains. The Avari believed them descended from the beasts of Angband, saying they had come east long ago. Unlike the grey wolves, these took men when they could, and not always for food; there were tales of them killing without reason. Despite the drag of the wind and the blinding snow, the twins shot at any shape they could, then drew their hunting-knives, following the glow of the Silmaril.

~~~

Finrod saw the arrows strike Orodreth's guards and was conscious for a moment of sick regret, before he flexed his wrists and reached for a sword. They had been standing long in the cold and the bonds had rendered his hands stiff. It would take some time for them to be of any use. He cursed.

_No matter,_ Glorfindel's voice said, and the storm hit. The night screamed and the Silmaril waxed until the world was an inferno of white-on-white where black shapes of men and horses and wolves struggled against the blizzard, their voices snatched away.

A sinewy hand gripped Finrod's.

_Come,_ Elurín cried.

_The others. My brother!_

_Which one?_ Elurín sounded playful.

_I am here,_ Glorfindel said. _Go with him._

_The wolves._

_Yes, the wolves._ Glorfindel sounded as if he were restraining rage. _We will deal with them._

_Where is Celegorm?_ Finrod asked.

_Eluréd is with him._

_I must find him._

Elurín thought teasing impatience at him, then said: _Come then._

~~~

Orodreth crawled half blind, over the snow, whimpering at the fierce scorch of his burned hand. He pressed his palm against the icy surface in an attempt to numb it, but this was no ordinary burn.

_Fool._ The voice was Fëanor's, and Orodreth knew it was in his mind, but it seemed to come from the stone itself. _How couldst thou dare to believe thou wouldst achieve this theft? And thou didst try to kill one of my sons._

Orodreth ground his teeth together and lunged, then howled as the jewel flared and bit. His thrashing tumbled it down an incline and he staggered to his knees.  
Something slammed into him and he was thrown onto his back. He saw, through the blowing whiteness, Celegorm's face for a moment, the dark eyes holding rage, before he vanished down the slope.

Celegorm could not hold a weapon either, but his legs worked well enough and he had used that one kick to good effect. He would have liked to kill Orodreth, but the jewel beckoned him. Perhaps his father was willing to allow Glorfindel to hold in in trust, but it was not for any-one to take it back to Valinor. He felt its recognition of him and paused for a moment. He had dethroned a king and killed innocents to reclaim this gem.

_It will not harm thee,_ Fëanor told him. _I love thee._

_Father,_ Celegorm responded helplessly, and reached out.

Orodreth's scream was lost in the wail of the wind as he threw himself from the ridge, his uninjured right hand clasping a dagger. He seemed to hang in the wild air for a long moment before coming down.

A shape hurtled over Celegorm's back, collided with Orodreth and brought him down. Celegorm, turning, saw Finrod pinning Orodreth to the ground.

_Ware his knife!_

_I know. Get the Silmaril._

Celegorm's skin flinched from contact with the jewel. He could not help it, for all his father's words. He thought of the unfading scars on Maglor's palm, and inwardly groaned as he clenched his fingers about it. A shock ran up his arm and the stone felt hot, as a bowl of tisane is hot, but it did not harm him, and that almost surprised him into dropping it. He wondered for a heartbeat why there was no great triumph in holding one of the Silmarilli after all he had done to try and reclaim them, why he felt nothing. It had driven Orodreth insane – No, he corrected himself, his father, through the Silmaril, had deliberately driven Orodreth insane. And that was at the root of this: his father. Celegorm no longer cared about the jewels because their creator was alive.

_I have it, father._

_I know._

~~~

Finrod smashed Orodreth's wrist against the snow violently, once, twice, thrice and his brother's grip loosed.

_Please!_ Orodreth went limp. _Enough. Please._

Finrod was too enraged to speak. He kicked the dagger out of reach.

_He is mine now,_ Dana said.

_Wilt thou kill him?_

_No,_ she replied simply, vouchsafing nothing more.

Finrod stared down at his brother.  
 _It is not I or Glorfindel whom have shamed the House of Finarfin._ He stabbed the words into Orodreth's mind like a blade and and then, disgusted with what he saw, he turned away toward Celegorm.

Orodreth's eyes narrowed. Curses trailed from his mouth as he slipped his unburned hand into his boot and forced himself up.  
 _Too trusting, brother, always._

_Come._ Finrod caught Celegorm's arm.  
Who pushed him violently away and, without warning, hurled the Silmaril as if it were a rock. It struck Orodreth and he shrieked, dropping the knife, and vanishing into the snow.

_There was a knife in his boot,_ Celegorm said.

Finrod gazed into the night for a moment, and then picked up the gem. Isolated in the storm, they looked at one another.

_I do not know,_ Celegorm sounded puzzled. _I do not...desire it._

Finrod gave it into his hands. A dry smile crooked his mouth, thinking that once Celegorm had sworn to slay any hand that touched or claimed a Silmaril.

It was never the jewels.

He turned his back, felt those black eyes on him, then spun back and struck that sultry mouth with a kiss.

_This makes no difference. None at all._

_And damn thee too,_ Celegorm raged.

~~~

The wolf died as Maglor crushed its throat. His scratches stung fiercely and he felt warm liquid ooze from them.

_Father!_ Tindómion fell on one knee beside him. Maglor saw blood on his face and hands, a rip down his thigh. he was favoring that leg. At his look, his son said, _It will serve me. Come!_

_Come to me._ Glorfindel called.

Dead beasts lay around him; his hands were red to the wrists. There were so many and there was not just one mind guiding them. He had to break the bonds one by one, and then the animals were mad and attacked anything that moved, men or one another. He wondered grimly how many they would find dead after the storm had passed.

_Maglor, Istelion, to me! Coldagnir!_

Glorfindel moved through the storm, shedding gold, A wolf crouched and sprang, eyes catching the light, then fell dead at their feet. Daeron retrieved his knife, looked at Glorfindel and inclined his head. The wolves were circling now, eyes like tainted rubies, teeth bared in jagged white warning.

To Coldagnir's senses, the night was alive with malice. And still he leashed the fullness of his power, afraid that he would become the demon he had been in Angband.

_Trust thyself,_ a voice urged him and felt a touch on his shoulder. Turning, he looked into vivid purple eyes.  
 _Why didst thou come if not for this?_

Then Vanimórë was gone into the storm.

Three Fell-wolves slunk toward him.

_Draugluin and Carcharoth's brood,_ Coldagnir thought, remembering.

  
~~~

  
Fëanor stood motionless in his tent, his sons around him. Fingolfin was there and Fingon, Fanari, Legolas, Gil-galad. Every inner eye in the encampment was bent on the drama unfolding to the south, but Fëanor's mind seemed to focus all of them like a lens.  
There was no sound. This was the center. Fëanor's eyes were blank and blazing with impossible, unearthly light.

On the other side of the world, Beleg had risen from the workbench, wild goose feathers drifting to the floor. He went to the door and stared blindly into the East, and Aredhel too, stopped and gazed, as her son watched, then turned his head toward the Towers of Mist.

A Silmaril was burning in the world again.

Under the ragged slopes of Ravenhill, Elgalad waited, knowing that he need not worry about Vanimórë, yet unable not to. He felt the sensation as of a swift, warm caress.

~~~

The wolves jumped –

– And Coldagnir _became._

He roared up in the night like furnace. Those who saw him said that great red-gold wings clapped outward like an eagle's, and that his face shone with a terrible, radiant beauty.

The grey wolves ran, mute and mad. The Fell-wolves tumbled back, then turned, tumbling and fled in a torrent.  
In the wrong direction.

Glorfindel heard Daeron's warning cry to the twins even as he sent out his own. There were many things he could do; it seemed there were always things he could do, if he did not care what damage he caused. He had people to protect.

_I know,_ Vanimórë said wryly, then, on a grin, _We will just have to use the old ways, Golden One._

_They have always served us well enough,_ Glorfindel agreed.

  
~~~

  
Maglor saw the wolves come like a swarm. Off to his right, the Silmaril was a dropped star. He raced toward it, Tindómion followed, then saw the thing from the corner of his eye and wheeled. The wolf looked as big as a pony, and its stretched maw seemed to laugh as it gathered itself on its haunches and sprang.

Time ran like honey...

And Vanimórë hit it at the apex of its leap, twisting in midair, one booted foot cracking out to impact on the animal's skull. It hit the snow in a heavy, sprawled tangle of limbs even as Tindómion watched Vanimórë spin gracefully and land like a cat. He glanced back with a smile and wink, snapped out his swords and sprinted away. _By Eru, he can move,_ Tindómion thought with unstinting approval.

_I could not see harm come to Maglor's beautiful son,_ came the blown-kiss answer.

_Istelion?_ Gil-galad's voice and his mother's chimed in unison, sharp with fear. He could not answer them, he was already throwing himself into the Fell-wolves. Every-one, every _thing_ was converging on the Silmaril as if it were a magnet, and violence clashed and snarled in a ring about it. Wolves scrambled back from Glorfindel and Coldagnir, or yowled as their fur caught alight. Sword and dagger-blades misted sprays of blood into the air, beasts rolled with mens' legs clamped to their barrels.

Celegorm, swearing, looked for a weapon, even as he held the Silmaril aloft. He saw Finrod turn, and his face was so close that the Fëanorion could see his eyes widen.

~~~

The beast that had slipped through the defenses was massive, burly as a bull. It slunk almost on its belly, low and swift, and its eyes were too still, too intelligent.

And Celegorm remembered Finrod's death, something he had seen over and over again in the monstrous emptiness of the Void. (And he spared a moment to wonder if all that torment was of Morgoth's devising or of other minds...) He saw Finrod's muscles flex, saw him move to take the flying weight of the thing when it hit him.

“Finrod, _no!_ ” He thrust past his cousin and raised the Silmaril high. The wolf looked straight at him, and its eyes were not the eyes of a beast. They were _hungry,_ and not for him.  
For the jewel.

No-one now living had witnessed Beren confront Carcharoth with the Silmaril in his hand, but all the Elves saw and recognized the echo in Celegorm's actions.

A streak of white rushed past him, past Finrod, and met the leap of the Fell-wolf like an arrow-bolt, hurling it onto its back. It yelped, scrabbling to its feet and the great dog stood, claws digging solidly into the snow, the growl in its throat rolling deep as thunder.

And Celegorm, the breath driven from him by shock, whispered: _“Huan!”_ ~

~~~


	3. ~ A Healing of Wounds ~

  
The dog was huge and beautiful, wolf-like itself, but kinder in the face, with more muscle in its shoulders and a broader chest. Even as Celegorm spoke the name, it leapt and the two animals exploded in a snarling tangle.

Blood flowered on the snow. Celegorm ran forward. Finrod pulled him back.

_Wait._ Glorfindel came to their side. _This is not thy fight._

There was a dreadful sound from within the threshing bodies. The hound jerked back and the wolf scrambled up; not to fight, but to flee. One leg was useless. The dog moaned in its throat as if with pure animal triumph and took it down, the great teeth locking on its jugular.

The wolf's cry died into a gurgling whimper.

“Huan,” Celegorm cried, and the hound rose, turned its head. It shook itself, just like a dog when coming out of water, then bounded in pursuit of the last fleeing wolves.

“ _No, Huan._ To me!”

“It is not Huan,” Maglor said gently. “It cannot be, thou knowest that.”

“Thinks't thou I do not know him?” Celegorm demanded, but the hound was already gone into the hiss of the rain that was softening the snow, blotting crimson into pink stains. “He is wounded.”

“He knows what he is doing,” Glorfindel said. “Let us get into shelter and look at our own wounds.”

“Celegorm.” Maglor shook his head. His brother cursed and shouted again, “Huan!”

“He will return. He does what he needs to do.”

“Then it is Huan?” Celegorm whirled on Glorfindel, and Maglor stared. “ _Ah, Eru!_ How?”

“Yes, how?” Finrod asked. “How could it be?”

~~~

Elgalad unstoppered the wineskin and soaked a cloth, cleaning Vanimórë's wounds. His tunic and breeches were rent by scraping claws. It was strange, perhaps reassuring, to see he could be injured, though Elgalad hated to see him hurt and was ashamed of his feelings.

Vanimórë turned his head. “I have flesh and blood and bone. I will be hurt, and I will heal quickly. I always did.”

“I d-did not mean...”

“I do not want thee to think thyself somehow inferior to me, now. Thou art not.” He moved and brought his hands down on Elgalad's shoulders. “I am no different inside now than I was before I was changed, and both then and now, thou art worthy of better.”

“I do n-not want _thee_ to m-miscall thyself,” Elgalad said vehemently.

“ _Do_ I miscall myself? What has thou ever done that brought thee shame?”

“Wh-what hast _thou,_ my lord?”

Vanimórë laughed shortly. “Thou dost not know my life.”

“I have seen a l-little. Thou didst show me. I know enough. There is no b-blame on _thee._ ”

“Is there not?”

Elgalad raised a hand as if to forestall further words. “I w-wish I could have helped thee.”

“Do not think thou hast not. Knowing some-one loved me was –” He caught Elgalad's fingers and drew them to his lips. “Never mind, Meluion. Let us return.”

“I mind,” Elgalad whispered.

“That in itself is benison.” Vanimórë shrugged on the torn tunic and draped his cloak over it. As they walked, he related Orodreth's madness and the battle that had followed.  
It is good to recognize the limits of power,” he said. “Or to know that there are none and see the danger in that. I think Glorfindel and I simply find it easier to be warriors than Gods.”

“And Coldagnir? He found h-himself? His true self?”

“Yes, although it has alarmed him. He does not trust what he is. Yet.” Vanimórë raised a quizzical brow. “He interests thee.”

“He seems...v-vulnerable.”

“He is a Maia of Fire.”

“Does that m-mean he cannot be vulnerable?”

“No, sweet,” Vanimórë conceded. “But I think thou dost feel an affinity with Coldagnir because thou hast always felt vulnerable, thyself. Thou art not, physically and yet...Perhaps it is because thou didst not have the love of both parents in the womb, were raised only by me.” He tilted his head. “Coldagnir and I were slaves, but even a slave has a choice between life or death if living is unendurable. So, were we cowards?”

“No. If d-death promises more horror than l-life — ”

“We chose the easier path.”

“My d-dear lord, _both_ paths were paved with pain and hate.” His fingers drew gently over Vanimórë's cheekbones. “I should hate Coldagnir for wh-what he did to thee.”

“I wonder if thou canst know how thy gift for forgiveness shames me? I do not love easily.” He covered Elgalad's hands with his own. “Perhaps Coldagnir needs some time with _thee._ ” He searched the wonderful grey eyes. A smile lurked in his own. “The Noldor do not need him and I can watch him as well as Glorfindel.”

Elgalad's brows dipped. “Would he come?”

“I could bring him, if he agreed. For a time at least. Ultimately, he will integrate better with the Elves than with Men.” _Glorfindel?_

_I see no harm in it. It might be good for him. And he can return, of course._

“We shall see,” Vanimórë nodded, and they walked for a time in silence as the sky slowly darkened.

Elgalad said, after a while, “I know the t-tale of Huan, But how is it possible that he has returned?”

“Ah, Huan. Yes. Thou knowest Huan was a warhound of Oromë, who gave him to Celegorm out of friendship, but there was more behind that gesture than friendship alone.”  
  
Behind them they heard wheels trundling over the snow; two men muffled against the cold driving an open cart stacked with cordwood. They drew level, and one of them indicated the back of the cart with a jerk of his thumb. Every-one in Dale knew that Edric had two Elves in his employ and they attracted no small measure of curiosity. Vanimórë raised a hand in acceptance, and he and Elgalad climbed onto the tail.

“Huan was more than a hound, just as Draugluin of Angband was more than a wolf. Morgoth trapped the spirits of lesser Maia in his werewolves, and Draugluin was one of those, the first. Carcharoth was the greatest.”

“Then Huan was...?” Elgalad stared at him.

Vanimórë leaned back against the cordwood.

“He was never _trapped_ within the form of a hound. He was – is – a Maia who followed Oromë and _offered_ to be bound in the shape of one. Oromë knew that Huan had a part to play in the Elder Days, that it was foredoomed he would not die unless he were slain by the greatest wolf that walked Arda. Huan knew it too. He met and slew Draugluin, then battled with Sauron in wolf-shape, and he and Carcaroth fought to the death.”

“And so he h-has returned. For Celegorm?”

“Yes. He too was woven into the Doom of the Noldor. No doubt he did feel rage and sorrow at Celegorm's acts, but even that was foretold. It is time for them to be reconciled.” Vanimórë's eyes narrowed on the snowy ruts rumbling behind them. “I do not know this, but I think that every battle ever fought and lost by the children of Eru against the Dark will be re-fought at the End.”

Elgalad frowned. “But would n-not Celegorm _know_ what Huan is?”

“No-one told him,” Vanimórë said simply.

~~~

The rain began to ease as Glorfindel lead them into the lee of some woodland. Coldagnir still glowed like a fading fire, but the first words he said were: “I did not mean to drive the wolves to thee.”

“I know.” Glorfindel clasped his arm, much to Coldagnir's surprise. “ _That_ is how thou wert meant to be.”

They warmed the air about them as the others tended to wounds. Few of them were not bruised and cut from the vicious close-quarter fighting.

“This is deep,” Maglor said, examining Tindómion's thigh. “Thank Eru it was not higher.”

“I do.” Tindómion smiled and they embraced, molding into one another. When Maglor drew back, he pushed strands of wet hair from his son's face.

“I cannot thank thee for killing my brother's people,” Finrod was saying to Eluréd and Elurín. “But thine arrival was timely.”

“They might have killed _thee,_ ” Eluréd said. “We could not allow that.”

“The Mother asked us to come,” Daeron murmured. “We do not question her.” His eyes moved to Maglor and he inclined his head in recognition, but his expression was unreadable.

“Daeron.” Maglor raised one hand, then dropped it.

“Maedhros and Maglor searched for thee,” Glorfindel told the twins.

“We know.” Elurín came forward. They moved, those two, with the grace of delicate white cats, and the tilt of the head was also feline as Elurín regarded Maglor. “We do not forget. We do not forgive. But we have avenged ourselves.” His voice was light, sweet-toned, careless. Maglor glanced at Celegorm.

“Thinks't thou I, or my brothers or father could forget or forgive that?” he demanded.

“Thou didst not hunt us down,” Eluréd pointed out, with a tiny smile folding the corners of his mouth.

“It is done. Leave it.” Celegorm's voice came sharp. “Our father has said it.” He opened his clenched fingers, and the Silmaril's light burned outward, bleaching their features. He handed it to Glorfindel, who took it, looking at him through the glow.

“So now, thou doth know.”

“Now I know.” Celegorm turned and looked to where the hound had disappeared.

~~~

The misting pearled on the riders armor, the horses spiked shoes pricking into the snow as they slowed and drew up in a flurry of white. Fëanor strode to his sons and grandson, then stood back to allow Tindómion to greet his mother, whose furred hood fell back as she ran to him. He held her close and over her shoulder, his eyes met Gil-galad's.  
Fanari drew back, her eyes running over his blooded clothes.

“Thou canst ride?” she asked, and he laughed. She had been the mother of a warrior too long to exclaim over his wounds.

“Yes.” He kissed her cheek, then reached forward to take Gil-galad's hand, and gripped it hard.

~~~

“I have told Orodreth's people that if they repent and wish to take another as their lord, they may return,” Glorfindel told Fëanor. “Many of them simply followed my brother, and had no desire for bloodshed.”

Slumped dark shapes dotted the snow, of Elves and wolves both.

_It would be wise to show mercy,_ Glorfindel continued silently.

“Would it?” Fëanor said softly. “I am not in a merciful mood.”

“And neither am I,” Glorfindel flared. “Hells, that was _my brother._ But I am not the High King.”

“Fëanor,” Fingolfin said. Just his name.

“ _What?_ ” Fëanor whirled on his brother. “These bloody betrayers hiding under plaster smiles, daring to lay a hand on those I love. I will not have them springing up like a fungus on rotten trees. How many more are there?”

“None of us want it.”

“How many times do I have to forgive?”

“So many have yet to forgive _thee,_ brother mine. And perhaps now, they will begin to.”

They looked at one another in sudden and arrested silence.

_Wouldst thou do this?_

_Under the Blood Kiss only._

_Yes._ Fëanor took a breath and said to Glorfindel, “If they freely take the Blood Kiss Oath.”

Glorfindel smiled faintly. “I anticipated that.”

“To serve Finduilas.” Looking around, he saw her. She was staring into the distance, hands cupping her elbows.

“I agree.” Glorfindel moved to speak with her. The Mother already had. Dana was gone now, back to her secret place in the south with those she had claimed as her own.

“We should take the bodies,” Fingolfin said quietly.

“I do know,” Fëanor answered curtly, watching as Finduilas raised her eyes to Glorfindel. Gwindor put a hand out to her, but she withdrew herself and then her words came with sudden passion and anguish, flushing her cheeks, snapping her eyes into brilliance. Glorfindel nodded, took both her hands and clasped them. She sighed, motioned to Gwindor and they walked aside, talking. She would do well, Fëanor thought, if she did not take the guilt for her father's acts upon herself. And why should she? He did not believe for one moment she had been privy to Orodreth's plans, and Glorfindel had confirmed it.

_Oaths of kinship, oaths of lordship, and of love,_ he mused. _They followed Orodreth and he betrayed them. As I betrayed thee, Nolofinwë. And thou art still enraged with me._

_How not?_

_I thank the One thou hast not betrayed me, beauty._

_What wouldst thou have done if I had?_

_I would have killed thee,_ Fëanor said flatly. _It would have destroyed me._

_Yes,_ Fingolfin said. _It was not truly Morgoth that destroyed_ me.

The terrible force behind Fëanor's eyes melted. He took a step forward, then collected himself and turned to Coldagnir who stood alone and beautiful and uncertain.

_Glorfindel told me,_ he drew the Balrog's head toward him and kissed him. _Very well done._

~~~

The twins and Daeron had refused hospitality and vanished into the dawn before Fëanor arrived, but Glorfindel felt them following at a distance. They were still curious, still tugged by the old threads of violence and death, white moths drawn to the flame. He would find them in a short time, take them peace-offerings of food and wine and clothes. Legolas said he would go too. His blood was Iathrim* through Oropher, and his presence would be more palatable to the three. It might be a beginning, Glorfindel thought. Vanimórë had departed with a mental salute. The wolves had fled back to the north, whipped by madness and driven by Huan.

The encampment was waiting their return. Many had seen Fëanor relinquish the Silmaril and as he rode in, there was not one who did not bend the knee.

~~~

“Father,” Celegorm said when they were alone and reached out a hand.

“Yes?”

Fëanor's voice was unwontedly gentle. Celegorm, now bathed, reclining in furs, food in his stomach and wine in his hand, could only look at him. Then he closed his eyes, listening to the wind slap against the walls of the pavilion.

“What didst thou do to Orodreth?” and then, “I am sorry I believed – ”

“Orodreth wanted a Silmaril. He did not know what that entailed. I enlightened him.”  
  
Celegorm felt, drowsily, a hand on his cheek.  
  
“Did all my sons' believe I loved them less than the jewels?”

“I do not know, _adar._ And,” he opened his eyes. “When I took it, I felt nothing.”

Fëanor smiled.

“All we did...and it was thee we wanted. The Silmarils were merely part of thee.”

“Perhaps I did not realize the depths of thy love.”

“Father – ”

“Peace.” Celegorm felt his father's kisses on his brow, his cheeks, his mouth, firm and gentle and loving. “Peace. Sleep.”

Fëanor took the winecup from his hands, watched him sink back into the skins. When the inner flap moved aside, he smiled. No-one had prevented this visitor entering the tent.

The dog looked at him with acutely intelligent eyes, rubbed against his hip, and he ran a hand over the huge head.  
Huan stretched out beside the master he had loved above all others even when his own private doom took him otherwhere, and in his sleep, Celegorm's hand came out to rest on the thick white ruff.

~~~

“Rest until it is healed.”

“Yes, mother.”

Gil-galad threw the wet linen at him. “Fool,” he said. “I wish I may see Fanari bothering to fuss over thee.”

“True,” Tindómion said with affection. “But I have no doubt she will come to see how I am, later. As she did once before.”

Gil-galad glanced swiftly up. _The reaction to fear and battle,_ he thought. He said: “As well Dana took that traitorous cur, or I would have killed him.”

“Fëanor would have wanted to kill him, and others. Perhaps that is one of the reasons he had Orodreth swear on Her name.”

“Istelion – ”

“Gorthaurion was there, he stepped before a wolf for me.”

“Then he has my gratitude.” Gil-galad leaned toward him, his fingers tracing up from the bandage.

“Ouch.”

“What?”

“I am a little bruised.”

“Let me see.” Gil-galad parted the front of the robe and frowned at the mottled flesh. There were other wounds, but none as deep as that on his thigh.  
“Why didst thou not put unguent on these after bathing?” He rose and reached for a pot.

“I was hoping thou wouldst do it for me.” A provocative smile lilted on Tindómion's mouth.

“Knowing I am bound to let thee rest, after.”

“I am not _too_ damaged.” Tindómion's eyes flickered as Gil-galad applied the ointment. “But I forget, thou hast other matters to attend to.”  
He drew in a breath as Gil-galad pressed deliberately harder.

“Yes, how could I forget, after fearing for thy life? Istelion I wish thee to do a thing for me.”

“No, Sire.”

“I could command thee.”

“I know.”

“It need not be public.”

“I will not,” Tindómion enunciated. “apologize to Vórimóro. In public or in private.”

“It is due to him. Thou wouldst do the same to any man from prince to servant whom thou hadst so misprised.”

“I did not misprise him. And I do not regret what I did. Wouldst thou have me lie?”

“Dost thou not lie to thyself all the time?” Gil-galad flashed.

“Not to myself, _Sire._ ” Their eyes burned light back at one another. “Now I will ask a thing: Send him from thee.”

“Do not be a fool. For what reason? He was one of my companions many years before thee.”

“I ask it. Is that not a good reason?”

“No. I know what thou art doing, _Nárya._ ”

Tindómion said harshly: “I agree that dismissing Vórimóro would be unprecedented, even ignoble, but to use him is also ignoble. Thou dost not love him or even desire him overmuch; it is only one step beyond friendship, and convenient for thee. I refuse,” he pushed himself up. “ _refuse,_ to speculate on what happens between the two of thee, and thou knowest me well enough to know why. But I will not tolerate his flaunting his intimacy with thee.”

“ _Tolerate?_ ” Gil-galad repeated. “There is not the difference of a pin between thee and thy grandsire, is there? I will not order my loyal companion to curb his behavior to suit thee.”

“Then he has been warned,” Tindómion ground through his teeth.

“Perhaps thou shouldst observe and learn from him.” Gil-galad took his jaw in one hand and struck him with a kiss.

“Learn _what,_ Sire?” Their eyes clung, battling for supremacy.

“To submit with grace.” He knocked the obdurate, beautiful face roughly aside and walked out. Both of them, privately, were smiling.

~~~

“Uncle, if thou art busy I can come back.”

Fingolfin looked up. “No, Maglor, come. Thou hast not spoken to thy father, yet?”

“I do not know what to say,” Maglor said. “He is with Celegorm now.”

“Say what is in thy heart.” Fingolfin's smile went awry. “No. I know it is not that easy.”

“Nothing is easy with him. ”

Fingolfin uttered a brief laugh. “Truly. What wouldst thou tell him?”

“That I regret misjudging him.”

“Macalaurë.” Fingolfin rested a hand on his cheek. “Until the moment he abandoned me in Araman, I trusted Fëanor. Do not blame thyself for doubting him.”

“Thou didst also,” Maglor murmured.

“Yes. Of course. Believe me when I say that it grieves him, but it is good for him to think on it. And know this,” he kissed Maglor's brow. “It is not _we_ who have to apologize to _him._ ”

“I forget that. How strange.”

Fingolfin drew him close. For a long moment the two tall beautiful men held one another, sharing the same regrets, the same impossible love.

 

#~~  



	4. “I Thought of Them As Lost Sheep.”

  
Vanimórë rose and hailed the men. One of them turned his head and caught the tossed wineskin with a quick, “Thank-you.”  
After a few long swallows they lost their taciturnity and fell into the over-loud slightly blustering tones of men unsure of their company but determined not to show it. They vouchsafed that their names were Osbeorn and Eadgar.  
Yes, the siege had been a bad time they said, but now the peace had come they had rebuilt their house outside Dale. Oh, times were always hard for the poor, but better, Eadgar owned, than before.

The homestead lay off the road into the city. It was not large, but there was an undercroft and rooms above it, and the cordwood stacks were neat. Smoke rose almost straight into the gathering dusk.

“We will help thee unload,” Vanimórë said. “A gesture of thanks.”

“But thy w-wounds, my l-lord,” Elgalad whispered.

“Do not worry.”

A door opened and a woman, her hair bound back under a wimple, stepped out. She peered.

“Eadgar, have we supper-guests?”

“No, mistress,” Vanimórë said, knowing quite well they were not welcome across the threshold. The offer to ride in the wagon had simply been curiosity. The woman stepped out and stared.

“We just offered these Elves a ride back to town, sister.” Osbeorn spoke with rough joviality. “Bring out two mugs of hot ale.”  
Without answering, she whisked back in, returning in a moment with the cups. Vanimórë and Elgalad thanked her and complimented her on the brew, but she did not meet their eyes. They flicked aside, past the undercroft and she said, “You are welcome. There is food on the table.”

Eadgar lead the horse to the barn and then both men bade the Elves goodnight, again offering a place at their table while hoping they would not accept it.

The door opened again as they were walking down the track. Vanimórë laid a hand on Elgalad's arm as the woman hesitated in the doorway, then hurried past the undercroft toward the barn. She carried a woven basket, such as one might use to collect eggs, and and had not seen them. She was, Vanimórë thought, near-sighted, and the light was going fast.

“My l-lord?” Elgalad asked softly.

“Wait.”

Coming out, the women dropped the bar over the door and instead of returning to the house, cast a quick glance toward it, then slipped around the back of the barn.

“She is meeting some-one. She was nervous of us, yes, but there was something else in her mind beyond that. Come.”

They moved silently, pausing to listen at the angle of the building. Voices were whispering very quietly.

 _Round the other side,_ Vanimórë gestured and they crossed the front of the barn, melting into shadow as the woman returned to the house and let herself in.

Vanimórë could see, but whoever was now coming toward them could not. He thought of the battle with the wolves and Coldagnir, smiled faintly and raised his hand. A small flame danced on his palm like a torch and illuminated the faces of the women. Yes, they were women, scarcely recognizable in layers of old, unwashed clothes. There was a gasp, then the soft thud and crack of breaking eggs. For a moment they froze and then turned to run.

 _Wait !_ Vanimórë quenched the flame with a thought and closed his hand on cloth. He received a bony fist in the face which made him hiss with annoyance.

“Stop it,” he whispered. “We mean no harm.”

“Please.” Elgalad was endeavoring to prevent the second woman kicking him. They were trying to be silent, to not make any noise but grunts of desperate effort escaped them.

“ _Get off_ me !” A knife blade gleamed dully. “I will kill you !”

Vanimórë stepped back, raised his hands.  
“Elgalad, come here.”

“You bastard Elf pig !” the woman with the knife spat as they backed away.

“The bastard I will accept. But why dost thou insult me?” Vanimórë asked calmly.

“Of course, you do not know, do you?” The woman's voice held fear and fury in equal measure. “But I know _you._ You are the one who brought us back, herding us like lost sheep. Better if you had let us die !”

“By the Hells...”

Elgalad looked a question.

“After Sauron's defeat,” Vanimórë said in Westron. “I came north. I did not know what to do with my freedom, but when I learned that bands of orcs had taken some women and were fleeing back to their holds in the mountains, I found something I _could_ do: kill the orcs or frighten them enough to have them abandon their captives”

“That was wh-why they went to Angmar.”

“Yes.” Vanimórë remembered the voice of a young man with war-shocked eyes and a resolute set to his mouth.

_“I am Aelfridd of Dale. My betrothed was taken. She was out gathering herbs and the attack was swift. I...have...no-one has found her body. We have searched, but the mountains are evil and few can be spared. if you go, sir, I wish to come with you.”_

_“I do not burden myself with baggage, thou couldst not keep up. And thou shouldst know, Man, that thy woman is more than likely dead.”_

_“I know. But at least I can bury her with love, with her people.”_ *

He stared at the woman's face, thinned by semi-starvation and in his mind gave it more flesh and a head of thick fair hair.

“Sunniva,” he said. “Betrothed of Aelfridd.”

“Not after you brought me back !”

“He saw thee as soiled.” Vanimórë heard the flat anger in his voice.

“He and my family. You did a good thing,” Sunniva said bitterly. “when you rescued us, Elf-lord!”

“Where dost thou live?”

“Who cares?”

“I would not ask, did I not care.”

“Why?” she challenged. “We are just orc-whores.” She must have sensed his sudden burst of internal rage, because she stopped, gulped back her words. The other woman shifted closer to her.

“She is not well,” Vanimórë observed.

“None of us are well ! Meghan tries to help us at whiles.” She added more quietly, “Do not give her away.”

“We will not. Come with us.”

“Where to?” Sunniva hissed. “Or do you want some of what the orcs had? Yes, there are some that do, if they can find us.”

Vanimórë controlled his voice with an effort.  
“We will find thee somewhere to stay.”

“In Dale? That you will not. Do you not understand, Elf? We are not permitted in the city. We are filth to them, and they to us !”

There was a long silence. “How many of you are there?” Vanimórë asked at last.

“There are twelve of us now,” Sunniva said. “There were more. Some have died, others...took their own lives. There are more south, around Lake Town.”

“Thou h-hast been homeless since the war?” Elgalad sounded horrified.

“We have to go.” Sunniva did not answer his question. She had some strength of mind, Vanimórë thought. She was afraid of he and Elgalad, but she had been through enough terror to face them.

“What dost thou need?” he asked.

“From you? Nothing ! You have done enough !”

When they had gone a little way, Vanimórë said, _Follow them, my dear. I will find thee later._

_What wilt thou do, my lord?_

_First, get them food and warmth. They came here for food. **Then** I intend to do something about this._

_This atrocity is not thy fault._

_No, but I should have thought._ Vanimórë ran his hands over his face. _And I did not, although I have seen this happen before. I was so intent on slaughter, on bringing back those I could, so drunk on my freedom, that I did indeed think of them as lost sheep._

Elgalad moved closer, his arms locking around Vanimórë, who breathed in the scent of his hair; something clean, loving, _right._

_And they were ostracized. They were blamed for what had happened to them._

_Why?_ Elgalad asked.

 _There thou doth strike to the heart of the matter,_ Vanimórë said. _Why? But I brought them back. They are my responsibility._

_But what canst thou do?_

_I cannot force their acceptance, Elgalad. Even if I ruled Dale, still I could not; it is a view too deeply entrenched in mens minds. I never understood it. But I will make my displeasure known and there is **something** I can do._

_Imladris,_ Elgalad said. _Their Lady Celebrian was taken and abused, but they did not scorn her when she returned. And they have long been friends of the Dúnedain. They know Men._

 _Yes._ Vanimórë permitted himself a faint smile. _And we are both interested in what is happening in Imladris. But if they wish to go, it is a long and hard journey for them and we will need supplies._

He cleaned away the broken eggs before he left. It was something that would be noticed, he thought. Then he left, calling to Glorfindel who listened to him, offered some advice, and agreed with his proposal.

~~~

Coldagnir stood in Fëanor's pavilion alone and thinking. There was a small sense of triumph in his heart, and lingering guilt. He did know, after all, that both people and animals ran from fire, but when the moment came, he had not been able to control it. He had burned and it had felt _glorious._

When some-one stepped through into the room, he turned, thinking it Fëanor, but as the man put back his cowl, he saw with astonishment that it was Vanimórë.

 _He needs to speak with thee, and I think thou shouldst listen,_ Glorfindel said.

 _I have need of thee,_ Vanimórë said.

_Of **me?**_

_Thou art more frightening than I._ The violet eyes glittered with a spark of laughter.

 _I am not !_ Coldagnir returned, staring at him.

_Thou art free now to learn what thou wouldst have been before Melkor. Thou canst learn this here, but also with me. And I will bring thee back, after._

Coldagnir hesitated. Then, _I can be of use?_

_Yes._

_How?_ he asked.

~~~

King Bard, who had come to the lordship of Dale after his father's death in battle, was sitting down to the evening feast when the hall doors swung open and a tall man strode in as if he owned the hall, the city itself. Bard rose, startled and outraged when none of his door-wards came to arrest him. His lords and guards surged to their feet with him, knives hissing from their sheaths.

The doors swung shut with a resounding boom although no-one had touched them.

“Lord Brand.” The man bowed.

“What do you want?” he was pardonably annoyed, and not a little alarmed by the interloper.

His chancellor, Lord Cynefrith, leaned toward him and murmured, “It is one of the Elves that Edric Hlothere-son has in his employ, Sire. I have seen him in Edric's house.”

“Thank-you, I can see that.” No-one would mistake this exotic, dangerous looking creature for a Man. Dale had historically retained a distant but friendly relationship with the wood-Elves, and they did not forget the help Thranduil had rendered the people of Lake Town in their need, but Bard was not of the temper to let this intrusion go unchallenged.

“If you wish an audience, _sir,_ I suggest you come when I hear the petitions of my people. Now, will you leave, or must I have you removed.”

“Thy guards tried to have me removed,” the man said. “They are not much hurt.”

There was a surge of anger and men toward him, and then every candle and lamp in the room went out. The fire vanished as if buried in earth.

“Be silent !” It was a vocal lash of command. “And unless thou wouldst injure one another by striking blind in the dark, sheathe those daggers. I want thee to listen only.”

“Who are you?” Bard shouted.

“A representative.”

“From the Elves?”

“No. _Listen._ After Sauron was destroyed, I came here, to Esgaroth and Dale. Many of thee saw me. I went after the orcs and brought back the captives that still lived. I delivered them to safety. So I thought.”

There was a thump of metal on wood followed by the pour of liquid onto the stone floor. But for that, the silence settled like the slow crumble of burning wood into a hearth.

“I made an error. I believed thee better than other men I had dealt with in my life, that these free men of the North and West would show more compassion. Tell me: Where are those captives now?”

Bard strained to see in the blackness, but spots of light still danced in his eyes from the dousing of the lamps and the voice seemed to come at him from behind him, before him, the corners of the hall. This was no Elf, he thought, afraid for his people and himself. There was a sense of pressure on his skin, and the hairs on the back of his neck had risen. For no reason at all, he thought of the dark rider who had come with messages from Sauron to his father and to Dáin Ironfoot before the war.

“Wilt thou not answer me?” The words came from very close, quiet as a conspirator in the night.

Bard could not answer. It took him a moment to recollect what the man was even talking about. He opened his mouth, and there came, at that moment, a thunderous banging on the doors.

“Thou canst not.”

Light smashed into Bard's eyes as the fire roared to life, and out of it stepped a man-shape woven of flame. Scarlet hair coiled, hissing, and great wings spread like a eagle's. Fire reflected from the man's purple eyes so that they burned like gems in his head.

“I think we should talk, Lord Bard,” he said. “Call off thy dogs.” ~

~~~

 

* From Dark Prince Book One: Following A Dark Star.  



	5. ~ The Strength of Gentleness ~

  
The fiery wings caressed a tapestry which smoldered and caught alight. Galvanized out of the immobility imposed by shock, the people turned to escape through the door at the back of the hall. Only a few, Brand among them, saw the creature of flame reach out a hand, and the fire flow back into him, leaving the embroidered cloth scorched and blackened. And only Vanimórë felt Coldagnir's self-reproach. He smiled within.

“He means no harm. I simply want to get thine attention,” he said cool as a cloud. “But I think it is a good idea if the hall is cleared.”

Brand sounded as parched as if the fire had dried his mouth.  
“You have my attention whomever – whatever you are.” He believed in the Gods; one had to if one believed in Sauron. And he did. Had he not seen for himself the black riders? The feeling of the world being skewed, of being darker than he had ever dreamed had drenched him then, as it did now. This black-haired violet eyed creature with a face out of legend was no Elf, but Brand knew not what God he might be. None of the ancient tales spoke of anything like him or the fire-being. He turned to the brown-haired woman beside him.  
“Go, Leola.”

His wife's hands were gripping the edge of the table so hard that the bone pearled under her skin. “I will stay,” she mouthed.

“I cannot allow...”

“I will _stay,_ my lord.” Her voice trembled, but she did not move.

In a moment there were only a few members of the Lords Council, all standing, all with hands on their knife hilts. Coldagnir had drawn the fire back into himself and now appeared as a man limned in light, but naked as a babe.

“My thanks.” Vanimórë inclined his head and walked toward Bard, stopping an ell from the dais. “I have not come to debate with thee. I am taking the women away if they will go, to a place where they need not starve and none will call them, what was it? Ah yes. _Orc whores._ ”

A thin man with a precise mouth and rich, somber clothes stared, his lips thinning further into a bloodless line.

“Is that what thou doth think?” Vanimórë asked him quite mildly.

“They sold their bodies for their lives and brought shame on our city.” The mans voice came harsh. He took three steps back at the look that slammed into him although Vanimórë had not moved.

“And thou?” He turned to Leola. “And thou, Lady?”

“No,” she whispered. “No. But they were cast out, spat at in the street and worse.” She turned her head to her husband. “There were not the soldiers to protect them, and so...so.”

“They had no choice but to go and starve and be forgotten save by a few women who probably risk the wrath of their menfolk were they discovered. No law, no force of arms can affect how a man thinks, can it?”

Bard closed his hands into fists, stared down at them.  
“My father had died, Dale had been sacked. I did not think. I had no time.”

“I acquit thee of abetting it.”  
Bard raised his head at that.  
“I did not think either. Other matters demanded my attention. But I know men, the kind who would cower from some-one stronger, but think it brave to inflict pain on those weak or wounded. Weak themselves, they attack what they perceive as weakness in others; it helps them to ignore their own lack.” He stared at the thin man, who looked around and yelped like a kicked dog, “Sire !”

“Sunniva is thine own daughter.”

“Wait,” Bard said. “Wait.”

“What for? Justice? He called his own daughter a whore for being raped by orcs.”

There was a sound from Leola. She turned quickly, her blue eyes snapping.  
“You told me she was dead, Wade !” she accused. “I came to see her, and she seemed well enough considering what she had been through, then two days after you told me, with sorrow, that she had died in the night. I went to the mound of the dead and prayed for her.”

Bard too, was staring at his councilor with a face of flint.

“You threw her out?” he asked, then cursed and slammed his hand against the table. “What can I do?” he asked Vanimórë.

“I need steady riding horses and sumpter ponies, tents, furs, dried food, wine, warm clothes. It will be a long journey and a hard one, but they have survived two winters houseless. They will survive this.”

“You will have it.” Brand could not quite keep the relief from his voice.

Leola walked across to Wade and slapped him, backhanded.  
“Yes,” she said. “You will have all you need.”

“At this moment I need a healer; a skilled one, and one who will not find it offensive to treat these women.” Vanimórë gazed at Wade's burning cheek as he spoke. The mark was a hot brand against livid skin. He felt the man's screaming need to retaliate and his fear of what might happen if he did.  
“Also mead, wine, and the broken meats of this feast. I cannot wait for fresh cooked food. Any fruit thou hast. Honey. Fresh eggs, bread, furs.”

Brand nodded. “It will be done.”

Vanimórë smiled like ice forming. “Tell me again, Wade,” he said, very mild. “Tell me thy thoughts on these unfortunate women.”

The man opened his mouth, the corners bubbled with spittle. “They should have had the decency to take their own lives !” His eyes were black and malevolent.

“You cowardly _swine !_ ” Leola cried. “You never lifted so much as a stone to fight off the attack !”

Vanimórë raised a hand.  
“I was a slave of Sauron's for thousands of years, Man. I was raped many times. By Sauron, by men, by orcs, by great fell-wolves. Now, call me a whore. _Please._ ”

~~~

It was easy to follow the women. Although Sunniva especially went very light, her companion was heavy with illness. But for all that, they went as fast as they could toward the great spur of mountain.  
 _Caves,_ Elgalad thought, but even so, when they reached their hiding place, the women disappeared so abruptly that Elgalad was startled.

It was a long-abandoned mine entrance, he later discovered. There were many about Erebor, and some were so old that only by entering one could one know they were not naturally formed caves. This one was almost masked by vegetation, but a trellis woven with fern and heather had been drawn over the entrance to look, from a distance, like part of the mountainside itself. Few people from Dale would come here, Elgalad guessed; there was no reason for them to come. And if the Dwarves had a abandoned a mine, it was either exhausted or too dangerous even for their skills.

It was full dark now and he felt, as he leaned close to listen, a fine moisture on his face. Rain, not snow and the wind had turned to the south-west.

The cave-mouth was not entirely blocked, allowing an exit for the smoke to be drawn out and he could smell it, along with a sour odor of sickness, of bodies huddled too long in the same clothes, the staleness of old cooking. It would be a cheerless shelter, he thought, with a flare of the same anger Vanimórë felt.

He said, loud enough to be heard into the desultory murmurings within, “May I c-come in?”

There was an avalanche made of silence. Then he heard soft footsteps.

“Get away from this place before I kill you !” Came Sunniva's voice. She had a knife, Elgalad recalled, and no doubt it was in her hand now.

“P-please,” he entreated. “I mean no h-harm, and neither does my l-lord.”

He did not know whether his stammer had a calming effect, made him seem unthreatening, but he felt the atmosphere within the cave sink a little from high tension to wary acceptance.

“Step back,” Sunniva ordered. “I am used to defending myself, and I will if you try anything at all. Stand where the light will reach you.”

Torchlight welled out of the cave mouth as the makeshift trellis was pushed back. Sunniva was holding both torch and knife as a weapon. Elgalad put out his hands palm-up.

“Why?” she asked curtly. “are you here?”

“We truly do w-wish to help,” he said gently.

She made a sound of derision. “How?”

~~~

There were about a dozen women in the cave, which widened and then narrowed into a tunnel. Elgalad felt a faint draft of air from somewhere that helped to push the smoke from the fire out of the entrance. In the space around it, the women had made their beds from pine and bracken, which added a fresh resinous scent to the fetid atmosphere. As for their bedding, the women wore it, so bundled in hides and shawls that he could only see the ovals of their faces as they stared at him. An old bucket, perhaps scavenged from the Dale after the war sat close to the fire, it's bottom blackened from being suspended over the flames. But there were little things which brought a tightness to Elgalad's throat, touches of beauty which a man's camp would lack: a glimpse of broken beads beside one bed, a drift of some once-bright cloth, a withy bowl of pine-cones, the smell of dried herbs.

“I h-have some food,” he said. “Not m-much, but thou art welcome to it.”

“The last time I we accepted help from an Elf, we ended up here.” Sunniva's eyes were hard on him.

“My l-lord did not mean th-that to happen. He wants to h-help thee.”

“And I ask again: How?”

Slowly, Elgalad unstrapped his pack and laid it down, bringing out dried meat wrapped in muslin, slices of apple, oatcakes pounded with honey and nuts. He wished Vanimórë had not given the wine to the woodcutters, but knew he would bring both food and wine when he arrived. Setting the food down, he stepped back. Sunniva looked at it, then at him and he saw pride warring with simple need in her eyes.

“My l-lord will bring m-more.”

Some-one began to cough, a wet, harsh sound. Sunniva moved then, gathered up the food and began to distribute it. As if her acceptance were a signal, the others took their first bites. Only when they were all eating did Sunniva begin, chewing on the venison with the appetite only the truly hungry ever know. Elgalad could see in those brief moments why she had naturally assumed the position of leader. Even with unwashed hair, buried in a mound of clothes little better than rags, there was a stark, commanding beauty to her. He wondered if she had wept since being taken by the orcs.

“Are you of Mirkwood?” she asked, swallowing.

“I was, l-lady,” he nodded. “Now I travel w-with my l-lord.”

“Meghan spoke of two Elves with Edric the merchant. It seemed passing strange to me that Elves would need to work for Men.”

“My lord wishes t-to travel. And h-he knows th-the south.”

“He may know a lot of things, Elf, but he does not know how men treat raped women.”

“Yes, he does,” Elgalad said with deep pity. “Since the Elder Days he has been a slave. First to Morgoth Bauglir, the oldest Dark lord, and then to Sauron. He knows very well how it is to be used.”

He spoke in his gentle voice, which bled love and pain more than he knew. Vanimórë's heritage he did not reveal, or what he had become. It would be too much. The orcs had been enough. More than enough. Even to him, the name _Sauron,_ drew his imagination over leagues of land that rolled into blackness, to cruel mountains and beyond, to a legendary tower where a dark power sat behind an arras woven of shadow and sorcery. The Dark Lord was gone now, Barad-dûr broken, yet Elgalad knew that neither Morgoth or Sauron would ever be truly gone from the world. In hundreds of years, men here and in far distant lands would still speak of Sauron as if he existed, because in a sense, he and his master always would.

“My l-lord was, and still is, a paramount w-warrior and so, n-no, he was not driven from h-his home,” he said into the silence of the watching eyes. “He made himself l-live, as thou hast. But there is a p-place where thou may go and n-not be treated as sp-spoiled. The Men of the North c-call it Rivendell.”

“I have heard of it,” a woman spoke up unexpectedly. Woman? She was little more than a girl. The fire painted the sharp angles of a face that should have been rosy and rounded. “My great grandfather was a raft-man in Lake Town. When the Elves came for their wine, he spoke to them at times. My grandmother told me.” There came other soft assents, the nodding of heads.

“Yes, Menja,” Sunniva said. “I have heard of it too. But it is an Elf place.”

“Men go there too,” Elgalad told her. “They h-have done so for th-thousands of years. The twin sons of Elrond, wh-whom men called half-Elven are now the l-lords of Rivendell. They have mortal b-blood and they knew well Aragorn, n-now king of Gondor, from a child. Their m-mother was captured by orcs long ago.”

He felt their mood shift, saw their bodies tighten against memories.

“They rescued h-her, Elladan and Elrohir, slaying th-the orcs who had t-taken her. They saw wh-what had been done to her, and carried h-her back to Rivendell.”

“What happened to her?” some-one asked.

“The Lord Elrond w-was a healer of renown,” he said. “Her body h-healed but her spirit d-did not. She sailed to the l-land beyond the W-west and left her husband and ch-children grieving. But she w-was not ostracized. And h-her sons would n-no more scorn a r-raped woman than thrust a dagger through a childs h-heart. I know them. It w-was said that the waters of Imladris ran w-with tears after Celebrian departed.”

“And your lord wants to take us there?” Sunniva said in disbelief.

“Yes.” At her expression, Elgalad went on, “What w-wilt thou do here? All of thee d-deserve better. But it will n-not get better here, w-will it?”

The woman folded her arms, raised her eyes to the dark rock above their heads.  
“Why would he do this?” she asked after a long pause.

“H-He feels thou art h-his responsibility.”

“I am no mans responsibility, Elf !”

“It would give th-thee all a life free of cold and h-hunger, Lady,” Elgalad said softly. “Not free of m-memories, I know, but a n-new beginning.” He took off his cloak and stepped across to the woman who coughed and shivered, her eyes fever-bright. She drew it close, gazing at him and he laid a hand on her brow. The heat there was not from the fire.

“Where is it?” Sunniva asked reluctantly. “How far?”

“Beyond the forest and th-the great river, across the m-mountains,” Elgalad admitted.

“There are some who will not survive such a journey,” she said flatly.

“He w-will ensure all of thee arrive, I p-promise.”

“Ælfgifa is sick, or do elves not understand the illnesses of Mortals?”

“I have been s-sick, Lady.” Elgalad felt Ælfgifa lean into him and tightened his arms about her frailness. hearing the congestion in her breathing. “Spider venom. It is t-true we do not suffer m-mortal diseases, but we can b-be poisoned. We will d-do all we can, for all of th-thee.”

She tilted a brow, then said, to his astonishment, “You have the face of a tender god, Elf. I should not believe you, but I want to. It is true that we have nought here and nothing to hope for.”

“Hast thou h-heard the tale of Haleth, L-Lady of the Haladin?” he asked.

Sunniva laid more wood on the fire.  
“They say Elves love tales. Well, tell us.” She sat down.

And so Elgalad told her the story of Haleth, whom had become chieftain of her people after the deaths of her father and son, and held them against the orcs until Caranthir, son of Fëanor came with his warriors and fell upon the enemy from the rear. None of the names, he could see, meant anything to the women, and yet they should, for these tall, fair people might be descended from the same clan as the people of Haleth.

At last, Sunniva said with a wry lift of her mouth, “You tell me this as a warning that if Haleth had accepted the aid of the Elf-prince, her people might not have suffered in their journey?”

“They say Haleth w-was a warrior and p-proud as a king,” Elgalad said. “And her folk revered h-her. She did come at l-last to Brethil and such p-peace as there w-was in the Elder Days. Who knows w-what choice she would h-have made had she known th-the future?”

“Sunni',” Ælfgifa cleared her throat.

“I know. What choice do _we_ have?” Sunniva rose again. “I tell you this, Elf. Even were Dale to welcome us back with open arms and weep for shame at what they have done, I would not return to the people who turned their backs on me. My betrothed looked at me as if he did not know me. What did he see? I will tell you. Not a woman who had been raped by orcs, but just a woman who had had an orc cock between her legs. You would have thought it still there.” She spoke with the most utter and complete disdain, turning her shame into a blade against idiocy.

“I d-do not see that or th-think it,” Elgalad told her. “And neither d-does my lord.”

~~~

 _Why thinks't thou I followed, thee, forsaking the form I chose from the beginning? I could have gone to Middle-earth with any of the Noldor, or even passed across the sea alone, in the ways of the Ainur. But that is not how doom plays out, is it? I had to be where I was. I had to do what I did, but I never stopped loving thee, arrogant, prideful, cold and passionate, wicked and dangerous, Tyelkormo Fëanárion._

Celegorm dreamed that he lay on furs in his pavilion, his hand buried to the wrist in the great ruff of Huan's white fur. It was comforting, familiar from long ago. Then the hound pulled away, and the fur slipped through his fingers, long and milky as Huan rose. He was tall and graceful. His eyes were the same clear blue, their expression as fond as Celegorm remembered, but they were not human eyes, nor were they an animals. They were wild, strong and powerful; the eyes of an Ainu whom had never been tamed by Valinor.

 _I wonder wilt thou ever forgive them, Lúthien and Beren?_ Huan wondered, as Celegorm stared at him through the dreaming.

 _Thou didst not know._ He swept a hand down his unclad form. _I was always a little surprised at that._

 _Why_ Celegorm whispered. _What means this?_

 _Oromë had foresight. As did I. And there was a certain elegance in it, as thou didst see._

 _Thou didst turn from me !_

 _Yes._ Huan settled gracefully on his haunches and looked up, one eye shaded by the sweep of loose hair.  
 _Even had Elu Thingol given his consent to thy marriage to Lúthien, it would not have helped thee. Think on it,_ he advised. _Thou wouldst say Lúthien could have healed thee. She could not have. No woman, no man, no Power could have laid balm on thy grief after Finrod's death. Thou didst not want her for herself, nor even for her beauty, but because one she loved had, as thou didst see it, take Finrod from thee. Thou didst hate both she and Beren for that, but both did but love._

 _So did I love !_

 _She showed her love rather differently to thee, Celegorm. I helped her escape from thee before thy hate spurred thee to a greater atrocity._

 _And to help her gain a Silmaril, when thou didst know my Oath, as Finrod did?_

 _Thine Oath was greater than love, in the end,_ Huan said with sorrow. _It bent fate itself, but leaving thee ripped my heart in twain. Now thou must forget those two. They are long gone from this world._

 _Never,_ Celegorm said flatly. _They both used Finrod, and after they had buried him and shed their brittle tears they walked away. Curufin and I found them laughing, in love, in joy. Thou art right, I hated Lúthien, but I do not believe I would have forced her. She was nothing compared to the one I had lost._

 _Then thou wilt never forgive thyself,_

 _So be it._

Huan smiled. _My dear, prideful fool. Perhaps I would have thee no other way. And thou hast paid. All of thee have paid._  
He leaned forward over Celegorm, and his falling hair smelled of grass and new-baked bread. A growl thrummed through his body as he nuzzled his head into Celegorm's throat, who felt the gentle bite, the kiss and trembled.  
And woke.

The wind lamented, and the dimmed lantern shone red through its tinted glass, and the great hound lay asleep with its head on his breast. It growled softly in its sleep as dogs will when they dream of the chase.

~~~

Elgalad heard the horses hooves first, a gentle impact on the softening snow, and rose. The women too, came to their feet, hands going to their knives, all but Ælfgifa, who had fallen asleep in his arms, and was now curled in hides and his cloak in her bedplace.

“It is my l-lord,” Elgalad reassured them.

Vanimórë entered the cave, rain glinting like melting gems on his hair. With him was a stout woman in a thick cloak, the leather pack of a healer hung at her side, and a man in simple ranger's garb. His dark red hair was caught back from a hauntingly beautiful face and his eyes shone like metal. Elgalad's lips parted.

The healer pushed back her hood, pursed her mouth in disapproval, but her first words as she opened her pack were, “If I had known where you were, I would have come.”

Sunniva looked at her dourly. “Maybe. See what you can do, Fridiswid.”

“I thought a woman would be more acceptable and accepting.” Vanimórë motioned to Elgalad and drew him outside. Horses laden with supplies were tethered there, and they began to unload them. Over the soft brush of an armful of furs, Elgalad met the quizzical violet eyes that smiled at him.

“I thought thy gentleness might persuade them, my dear.”

“Thou canst b-be gentle,” Elgalad murmured.

Vanimórë leaned across the pelts and kissed him.  
“Not like thee.”

They turned as Coldagnir stepped up, and Elgalad stared at him, knowing this one had hurt the one he loved, and knowing why. The expression on the Maia's face, which was like a clear lamp in the night, was so strange Elgalad could not speak. He cast a quick, wondering glance at Vanimórë, who shrugged. And then, startling Elgalad the more, the Balrog bent his head like a prince in the presence of a king.  
“Thou art the one who wept for me?” he asked in a lovely, musical voice.

“I...suppose I d-did,” Elgalad whispered.

Coldagnir shook his head and tiny flames seemed to dance down his damp hair.  
“Why?” he asked. ~

~~~


	6. ~ Fire, Wind and Music ~

**Fire, Wind and Music.**   
  
  
  
“I d-do not know,” Elgalad said. “I felt...pity.”   
  
“For me?” Coldagnir's voice was bewildered. He reached out and hesitantly touched Elgalad's cheek with his slender fingers. Elgalad did not move. “Thou art filled with love.”   
  
“Yes he is,” Vanimórë agreed, and his face held a softness that caught the breath in Coldagnir's throat and held it there in homage to such beauty – and the sorrow under it like a shadow. “Now, let us make this place as comfortable as we can.”   
  
The cave became warmer even as the night grew old and cold. None but Vanimórë knew that the heat emanated from Coldagnir's presence, for even he did not seem aware of it and there was nothing to see, nor was his flesh hot to the touch. The women relaxed a little over food and honeyed wine, under the furs of squirrel and marten and fox. The healer Fridiswid made an infusion for Ælfgifa to breathe in and Vanimórë opened a pack and brought out a dark phial which he unstoppered.   
  
“Use three drops of this,” he said.   
  
“What is it?” Sunniva asked, as Fridiswid smelled it cautiously.   
  
“Sandalwood,” she said. “Expensive. Only seen this a few times even before the war.”   
  
“It is oil from the bark of a tree that grows far to the east and south,” Vanimórë said in answer to Sunniva's uplifted brows. “It is famed as an aphrodisiac, but healers use it for infections of the chest and bladder.”   
  
“Aphrodisiac,” Sunniva muttered. “That is just what we need.” She took the phial and rubbed a little between her fingers.   
  
“Aye,” Fridiswid said. “Noble ladies treasured this oil, but few knew the healing properties.” She carefully decanted three viscous drops into the boiling pan and covered Ælfgifa's head with a shawl, saying, “Breathe deep. Then I have a decoction of willow-bark for you. You need rest and good food.”   
  
Sunniva gazed at her shrouded head and then looked up at Vanimórë.   
“You smell of this.” She raised her fingers. “I remember it from when you rescued us.”   
  
“Well, I need an aphrodisiac,” he said unsmiling, then winked. Sunniva's lips twitched unwillingly.   
  
“I have something to tell thee,” he added. “Thy father is dead.”   
  
Something slammed shut in her soul. Another door opened in a sigh that held relief.  
“How?” she asked.   
  
“An apoplexy. Some people have such weak hearts.”   
  
Sunniva threw back her shoulders. “It will not surprise you to know I feel no grief. He was a hard, cold man always. He told me I should have honored my name enough to take my life rather than bring shame on it by surviving.” She uttered a bark of contempt. “But yon flower-faced Elf told me you had been a slave to the Dark Lord, been raped by orcs, and other things.” Her eyes demanded honesty.   
  
“Yes,” he said, giving her nothing less than her own abuse warranted. “And many times. But does rape define what thou art, Sunniva?”   
  
“They think it does.” She meant the people of Dale, or most of them.   
  
“Forget them. Elgalad was right to tell thee of Imladris – Rivendell. A new life. A better one.”   
  
“They would accept us, he said.”   
  
“They will. They already know thou art coming. I can reach to their minds.”   
  
The brush of the unknown feathered her with fear. She had vowed never to fear anything again, but her intuition told her there was something more truly terrifying in this man than the orcs that had taken her so savagely. There was strangeness in the others too, the one with hair the color of hawthorn berries, even the lovely Elgalad. Of course they were strange, she thought bitterly; centuries, thousands of years passed them, and left them only with an enriched beauty.   
  
“What are you?” she whispered.   
  
“Simply some-one who understands,” he said. “Insofar as a man can.”   
  
_Some people have such weak hearts,_ she thought. And did not ask the question.   
  
~~~  
  
  
  
In New Cuiviénen the snow melted and did not return. The hard weather was not over yet, but spells of frost were punctuated by blustery winds and rain. The streams that fed Gaear Gwathluin carried a different, deeper voice as they swelled.  
  
The Noldor sprang from winter like the first green shoots, and returned to their construction. When Celegorm was not working, he hunted. The Noldor built their walls of shaped blocks of stone, but none were more impermeable than the slab of silence that had settled between he and Finrod. Celegorm was constantly surprised by his cousin. After their kidnap, he had expected Finrod to come to him. Instead he had received a message expressing his _gladness_ that he and all of them were well. It might have been a letter dictated to a scribe, save that it was Finrod's own hand.   
  
Celegorm thought often of his dream of Huan, but he said nothing to any-one. Glorfindel had told him _what_ Huan was, and he had to believe it, although looking back, he realized that there were many things about the hound that been unusual, and could only be explained if he were indeed Ainu. He had lifted Huan's great head in his hands and said, “Wilt thou not speak, now? Even into my mind?” But Huan had only looked back at him, then gently pulled free to nudge his hip so hard he staggered. Yet he could not forget the dream and watched the dog closely thereafter.   
Huan followed him as he always had, but there was some differences. He would vanish at times, returning when Celegorm slept. Often he would wake to sense the huge warm body close by. Huan would bring in the scent of cold night air, and Celegorm came to guess what, or rather whom, took him out.   
  
~~~  
  
He did not ask why they stayed close to the _Golodhrim_ settlement. They had their reasons and Daeron knew the twins as well as he knew his own soul. They had cautiously accepted Glorfindel when he came with Legolas, reaching out to touch the latter's pale gold hair and saying, “Thou art one of us.” Meaning of Iathrim descent. The shelter that Dana had lead them to was being made permanent, with walls outlining what would be a large house. Daeron thought of their home in Dor Calen, and realized that it had never truly been their home, just a place where they stayed, but he said that when the Spring came he would return there and bring back some of their belongings.   
  
“Yes, we will come with thee,” Eluréd agreed. And that was all. He did not offer an explanation for why he and his brother had decided to remain in New Cuiviénen. He did not have to.   
  
When the white warhound first loped soundlessly through the night, Eluréd and Elurín had greeted him like a lost friend, tumbling with him, ruffling his fur and twining their arms about his neck. Daeron suspected that Huan spoke to them mind-to-mind, and was glad of his visits, for he had never seen such uncomplicated affection in the twins. They hunted with him sometimes, and Huan brought down huge stags and bulls with sheer speed and muscle. Once he took a lumbering bear that towered massive and belligerent on its hind legs. There had been no sign of the Fell-wolves since Huan had chased them back to their cold lairs, and Daeron was unsurprised. Sometimes the twins went to sleep with their hands in Huan's thick ruff, but he would leave in the night, slanting a long look at Daeron, who knew he was returning to Celegorm, the master he still loved.   
  
_Celegorm,_ he thought, as he heated wine, a gift from Glorfindel. Huan had not been here this day, and the twins were out. They sometimes went close enough to the great encampment to watch it, to watch Celegorm, perhaps Finrod too. Their appetites and their wildness had not been altered by their vengeance upon the Fëanorion. They were not afraid of Celegorm now, but nothing could heal their broken minds. Those who had been cast into the Void had not been healed after rebirth; all of their lives, all of their torment after death was still in their eyes. Perhaps that was what drew Eluréd and Elurín, and even himself to them.   
  
Cool air sent the flames wavering as the tent flap was drawn back. Without looking round, he began to say, “The wine is hot –” And then he turned, rising.   
  
“Then it will be welcome,” Fëanor said, with his lovely, dangerous smile.   
  
Daeron said nothing for a moment. Fingolfin watched him and he thought of his first sight of the half-brothers together, the inflammatory reciprocal desire that Fingolfin had wrenched away from. The need and hate in him had reminded Daeron of the twins. But the hate had all been on Fingolfin's side, not Fëanor's, who saw it and what was beneath it.   
  
“Welcome, my lords.” Although they were not. He did not know how Eluréd and Elurín would react to Fëanor.   
  
“A courteous untruth,” Fëanor remarked.   
  
“It has been long, Daeron.” Fingolfin stepped forward and extended his hand. They gripped wrists, and looking into his star-burning eyes, Daeron felt the passion that had driven him into Fëanor's arms and to foredoomed battle with Morgoth. At Ivrin,* he had seen only the steel armor encasing the loss of the one he loved. Even after betrayal.   
  
“It is good to see thee once more, lord,” Daeron responded. “Thy death filled me with awe. It is legend, still. I told the twins of it, long after.” He poured the wine, and offered it, his heart dinning in his ears, praying that they would not return yet.   
  
“Where are they?” Fëanor asked.   
  
“Thou wilt not hurt them.” Daeron discarded his careful control and flashed into protective anger even as he felt again his hunger for this perilous man, a desire without guilt, despite all the Oath of Fëanor had wrought.   
  
“I have told Celegorm I will not.”   
  
“Swear to _me_ thou shalt not, High King.”   
  
He felt Fëanor's rage even before it blazed into his eyes. Fingolfin laid a hand on his half-brother's arm and said, “It is his word, Daeron.”   
  
_And what words did he speak to thee before he left thee to ignominy or death?_ Daeron wondered. But Glorfindel had told him of Fëanor's relinquishing a Silmaril to save the life of others. The Oath had been such a titanic thing that to those who had not witnessed it, it had seemed that Fëanor was a madman obsessed with a work of his hands beyond all else. That shadow had loomed so large that the one who had cast it had _become_ it, the man himself well-nigh forgotten as the years tolled the deaths of all those who had known him.   
Daeron had never seen the Silmarilli before that storm-night of wolves and blood, but he had felt and recognized its power. What Fëanor had done was not a small thing. He gazed at the two, seeing how swiftly Fingolfin had read his brother's mood and stepped in.  
 _And how many times hast thou done that?_   
Fingolfin was not diminished by Fëanor's presence, and not because Fëanor was less than legend had him. He was more, far more. Yet the two complimented each other, and the attraction between them was a living thing like the flicker of swordplay, or a forge fire tempering steel.   
  
“Then I accept thy word,” he said at last. “I came too late. I should have read their intentions. I should, perhaps have told thee.” He hesitated and felt the heat in his groin, in his cheeks, “that they were with me, what they purposed to do. But I could not. They are dear to me.”   
  
“I have spoken to Celegorm. And that is why I wish to see these twins of thine. I understand complexities, Daeron.” Fëanor drank the wine, eyes unblinking over the rim of the cup. “This is not drugged is it?” he asked with a sparkle of laughter. “I was very interested in the effect the drugged mead had on my son and nephew. We knew of such herbs and fungi in Valinor, but Glorfindel believes it was mostly the twins powers.”   
  
And now Daeron felt himself blushing.   
“The wine is untainted. There are plants that can distort reality. That was how Celegorm was drugged the first time. On the night of the Solstice it was different. There was a herb yes, but Glorfindel is right, the twins weave strong spells at times. Sometimes even I think what happens is a dream.”   
  
“The Noldor never celebrated in such a way on Middle-earth, I am told. Certainly never in Aman. I would like them to.”   
  
Fingolfin's fingers tightened on his arm and then dropped and he glared.   
“Is that wise?”   
  
“Does one always have to be wise, my Nolofinwë?**”   
  
Daeron said blankly, “Thou hast come here for the drugs we use?”   
  
“ _Nost-na-Lothion_ *** approaches. I would invite thee and thy twins to celebrate it with us.”   
  
“They will not enter a _Golodhrim_ camp,” Daeron stated.   
  
“Will they not?” Fëanor smiled.   
  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
  
Daeron had not affirmed his belief, for he found that he was uncertain, and Fëanor and Fingolfin did not linger, but when the twins returned they sensed that the _Golodhrim_ had been there. He told them why, and they shared a deep look of fey blue, saying nothing.   
  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
  
The spring rains had sunk deep into the earth when the eve of _Nost-na-Lothion_ came, and brisk, warm winds chased clouds across the face of the strengthening sun. It was a night of slanting flames and a moon swelling ripe when the first notes of harp and flute and lyre rose, and the men and women came from their pavilions.   
  
Fëanor had proclaimed that the night would be one of celebration from dusk until dawn. They needed it. The first winter had been a strange one, and they had all worked hard to lay the foundations of this new kingdom, yet all the energy they poured into mining and building did not unravel the knots of tension between those he loved.   
Maglor had been withdrawn since the day of Orodreth's treachery, his apology given with stilted formality, as from a subject to his lord, and Fëanor saw the guilt there. He knew, too, why Maglor had drawn back from him. _My poor son,_ he thought with love.   
Celegorm and Finrod avoided one another with a studiousness that Fëanor found deeply amusing. He enjoyed watching that wrestling match, the looks they gave one another when each believed the other oblivious. Tindómion and Gil-galad were more blatant in their battle, as if playing the game forced on them in Lindon openly and passionately for the sheer savage joy of it. Fingolfin watched his half-brother with challenge and wariness and furious jealousy, but Fëanor was being surprisingly chaste. He suspected that there was no true satisfaction to be had in indiscriminately bedding his subjects. It would ease him, but he could do that himself, and when he watched his grandson's boiling tension, he smiled, knowing that for Tindómion, as for himself, there had to be a hunger so great it consumed both mind and body. For all the imperative clarion-call of his appetite, there were few whom Fëanor truly desired, and he was not a man who tasted many wines when he had discovered a superlative vintage. He had never grown tired of Fingolfin and the reason, he believed, did not hang on the thrill of their forbidden relationship, but only added to it. Fingolfin was a raging fire at the heart of him which fed on their couplings like oil. Had Coldagnir been here, Fëanor would have enjoyed him, but he had agreed with Glorfindel that traveling with Sauron's son would teach the Maia many things. He would return; the Blood-Kiss had bound him in ways deeper than words or even love could touch.   
  
Smiling, Fëanor walked out of his tent. It had been extended for councils and feasting, and now great pillars of pine held up a vast roof. The chairs and tables had been removed and the floor was spread thickly with furs, the flaps pinned open. He had invited certain people here this night, but as he looked around, he saw fires leap upward across the encampment and in the Teleri settlement. All the Elves of New Cuiviénen deserved this night. Had they not paid in blood, in madness and anguish for all their alleged sins?   
  
“Will they come?” he had asked Glorfindel, and then, “Make them forget a little, and in truth, not as thy brother affects to forget the Solstice night. Let them think it a dream, for a time.”   
  
“Not forever,” Glorfindel replied and, “Our minds are not made to forget, Fëanor. And they will know what happened even if not whom they were with. If thou wouldst unleash all that we are, all we could have been before Valinor and will be again, then the night will be wild beyond even thine own imaginings.” But his eyes shone.   
  
“Not forever, of course, where is the satisfaction in that?” Fëanor laughed. “What they do with their speculations and their memories when they return is their choice entirely, but they need this. And so do I. I _need,_ and until our mansions of stone are built there is not the privacy to pursue my desires. I have chained myself for political ends, Glorfindel, and believe me or no, because I care enough for those I want not to back them against a wall. I know their needs too, and I would have them take pleasure without great guilt.”   
  
“Their guilt is not in thy hands,” Glorfindel told him. “Their wanting thee ensures that, even were it not reciprocated. Yes, I know their feelings and thine. Why Eluréd and Elurín, though? Wouldst thou bind these descendants of Lúthien to thee as some kind of revenge against she and Beren for claiming a Silmaril?”   
  
“I would not have them fear us, and if they intend to remain on the borders of this realm, I would rather have them allies than not.”   
  
“Thou has not forgiven them, uncle.” Glorfindel's eyes narrowed. “Thou couldst not. I could not.”   
  
“I have not,” Fëanor agreed. “But Celegorm has. And I understand them. I do not want them to come so that I may punish them. If I wished to do that I would not disguise my intentions.”   
  
“No. Thou wouldst not. Very well. Just remember that not every-one belongs to thee.”   
  
Fëanor flicked his cheek with slim fingers. “All my people belong to me,” he said, teasing. “But I would never take any by force. I did it once. I took thee, my golden beauty. I do not regret it, but I will not do so again. No-one unwilling.”   
  
“Yes, that is what worries me,” Glorfindel replied.   
  
Fëanor laughed aloud.  
“ _Unleash us,_ Golden One.”   
  
“Fëanor,” Glorfindel said. “I do not need to unleash thee.”   
  
  
  
~~~   
  
  
  
Barrels of wine from Mithlond and Tol Eressëa were brought out, cyser and mead. Their heady fumes blended with smoke and perfume. Goblets and jewels flashed and flickered, but all wore simple clothes to emulate the natural beauty of the early flowers, and their hair was loose and unadorned. Fëanor heard the plangent notes of Maglor's harp, saw his son and grandson sitting together, creating a melody that soared up like a lark. He watched Finrod speaking to Glorfindel and Legolas, Celegorm glancing over. Gil-galad was with his father and Maedhros. Fingolfin took a cup of wine and turned to Caranthir, his face cast by firelight into opalescent marble. Fëanor crossed to the long table and drank, felt the music in his veins like the draught of wine.   
  
And he waited, remembering the heavy formality of Aman. Once, he had attended a feast in the Halls of Ilmarin, sitting in boredom while Manwë's preached of what the Quendi owed to the Valar, the merits of respect and obedience. He had met Fingolfin's eyes and winked, seen the colour brand his cheekbones. Manwë had been aware of their relationship, and had Fëanor ever taken any notice of him, he would have – what? He laughed inwardly. No, he would have changed nothing, and he thought his half-brother would not either. It was not for the Valar to judge him; only Ilúvatar might do that, and he had released those imprisoned in the Void.   
  
_One day, Manwë, Námo, Varda, thou shalt pay dearly._   
  
New music bled into the night like some distant bird calling from the lake. Through the light and shadow it touched the Elves with a memory older than any of them, of other waters beside the place of their first awakening. Maglor's head lifted and his fingers flew to match the tune. Tindómion paused and listened. His hands fell from the strings and he came to his feet. Fëanor saw memory blaze across his face, and Gil-galad turn to look at him.   
  
_What art thou remembering, I wonder?_   
  
A log was flung on the fire and sparks hissed upward, borne away by the wind. Fëanor tossed off the wine in his cup, tasting the tang of the drug from this, the second barrel. He dropped the goblet, slowly shed his clothes. The voices hushed, and he felt the stares as he walked before the flames. Inside him, the gates that locked away his hunger began to open and then he felt the dam break, the waters thunder outward, carrying the detritus of imprisonment with it. He shook his hands once as if casting the last dregs away, and with a tiny movement of his fingers turned the gesture into one of invitation to his guests to dance the freedom that the Noldor had not enacted since entering Valinor. And they joined him, one by one, stripping naked and glorious and the night became fire, became wind, became music.   
  
~~~   
  
Fëanor wondered after, if all of them saw that night as he did, in images frozen and snipped off the thread of time.   
  
~~~   
  
_That last Solstice night in Mordor,_ Tindómion thought, when the fey music of the twin pipes soared. The Elves of the Greenwood and Lórinand had played those instruments and rutted uninhibitedly, joyously, defying both Mordor and the scarce-known Valar. The Noldor, bound by knowledge of the Laws and the penalty for breaking them had not joined with them, but the High King's eyes had beckoned him and he had gone into his tent. They had not made love, but they might as well have done. All that abstinence had been for nothing.   
He did not spare a thought for the recklessness that had been rising in him since his second cup of wine, the deepening need that gripped his loins. When Fëanor stepped out, unclad and magnificent, he did not hesitate, offing his clothes and boots, and with them left his caution.   
  
He felt the brush of hands over him, the silken whip of hair, lips on his own, which parted eagerly to join them. He knew them, he realized from some remote place where his eyes still saw. Some held love, some affection, others simple, wondrous lust. Faces flamed across his vision, gave place to others, gilded by the moon or by fire, and all glowed with an unworldly radiance. He caught at the memory of that last Solstice in Mordor and was suddenly _there,_ knowing the one he sought.   
  
~~~   
  
Gil-galad saw him through a weave of bodies that span away as he closed the distance before them. He slammed into Tindómion and they clutched and grappled, going down intertwined. Their loins clashed with a shock of friction that forced groans from their joined mouths. There was not enough skin to touch, not enough contact, not enough he could possess. He was starving, wanted it all and more. They writhed, rolled across the ground, and he straddled the Fëanorion, pinning back his arms, seeing the white gleam of teeth and the glitter of eyes.   
There was no seduction, no building of tension; this was a primal need that scoured every other emotion from them. Gil-galad took him with a plunge that locked Tindómion's fingers about his arms like a vise, and madness possessed both them both.   
  
Darkness. Music. The moon sailing west. He felt sweat-damp skin, body heat, heard cries and curses of lovemaking that was as raw and wild as battle. He was hard again, ravenous still, and Tindómion answered his need savagely. Gil-galad swore over and over, his words bleeding into harsh moans. And oh, Eru, the pain and pleasure was red-hot, white-hot, unbearable, impossible. Tindómion was within him, and touched every part, every nerve, every frenetic pulse of blood. As his orgasm shattered the night and his legs gave way, Tindómion was still on him, moving harder, faster until he too broke and fell, rolling aside to breathe, to murmur a prayer or an oath. They moved closer, hands and mouths exploring in a passionate blindness that satisfied them only until lust returned.   
  
Fire. Wind. Music. ~   
  
  
  
  
~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** Nolofinwë - Fingolfin (Quenya)  
> *** Nost-na-Lothion - The Birth of Flowers, the equivalent of May Day, at least in this 'verse.


	7. ~ To Sanctuary ~

  
Far to the north and west of the world, Vanimórë reached Imladris two days before Nost-na-Lothion burned up in New Cuiviénen.

~~~

What surprised Sunniva, when sanctuary gave her leisure to think, was how easy the Elves had made the long winter journey. It was cold, but she did not remember the chill. Rains veiled the land, yet did not drench her. And the fires burned despite it.

They had left Dale equipped with sturdy horses and sumpter ponies carrying food, clothes and tents. Heading south, Vanimórë had found the women banished from Lake Town. They appeared to be in somewhat better condition than Sunniva's people, and talking to their leader, Gytha, it appeared that they had received aid from the wood-Elves. The relationship between the Elves and Lake Town was cordial enough, but no matter how close Elf and Mortal, the great abyss of death sooner or later opened between them, and that was not a gap most could bridge. The women were wary, even afraid of the forest and would not have ventured in even if invited. There were too many tales of darkness associated with it, even after its cleansing.  
Apparently, the Elven-king himself had come to Lake Town to discuss the matter, but faced the same problem as Vanimórë: the survivors were considered spoiled goods, and those who thought otherwise had no weight in council. The womens presence would be an embarrassment.  
The Elves had done what they could Gytha said, building shelters, bringing hides, food and healing herbs, leaving them to be found and vanishing into the woods. Thus the Lake-Town women were physically stronger than those of Dale, but their emotional scars were as deep and festering. The two groups had more in common than not, and melded together in mutual sympathy.

It had been a day of biting north winds and fitful stabs of sunlight when they set forth. Most had deep reservations, but all of them knew that they had become estranged forever from their old lives and could never return to them. And there were some, taken by men out of the East, who would never come back. Sunniva asked Vanimórë about them, and he had said, “The Eastern men are not all cruel monsters by nature. Some are honorable and kind. I know them. I will not say the womens' lives will be easy, but the tribes love their children and look after the mothers.”  
That night, Sunniva dreamed of her oldest childhood friend Haunild. She was standing watching a child play on a bright rug and her face was soft. In the dream, Haunild turned as a man entered, his hair falling from a topknot, his eyes slanted, and mica-dark. His was a hard face, but as he came to her, it relaxed into a smile and he opened his arms. Haunild went into them willingly and the dream faded as they embraced, leaving Sunniva with a feeling of reassurance. Only a dream, but she hoped it carried a meaning.

Of course it did.

The journey was of necessity, a slow one. There were over a score of women, and simply choosing and setting up camp before the early nights descended took time. The Elves hunted and stood guard and although the lands were wild, Vanimórë promised there were no orcs in this region and the women slept, after a time, without the vigilance that had been their bedfellow since the war. Sometimes Sunniva would lie awake for a while, listening to the sounds of the night, the flutter of the tent, warm under her furs, and felt strangely at peace. She had not, however become used to the Elves; she trusted them to a great degree, but they were still an alien breed. They were too good at everything they did, moved too easily, too quickly, as if the land and weather molded itself to their requirements. Men sought to tame the world, and their lives were a constant struggle against the weather and the wild. The Elves walked Middle-earth as if it were a friend. Sunniva had seen that their footprints left no marks on soft snow, and she had experienced an almost nauseous sensation as she imagined them with bird-light bones under that white skin. But she remembered Vanimórë's slaughter of the orc band who had captured her. He was far too strong, surely, to weigh so little.

Some nights later, when the women had eaten and were going to their tents, Vanimórë had said to her, as if carrying on a conversation, “Our bones are the same as thine, lady, though I do not intend to cut off my hand to show thee.” And he had smiled, but as Sunniva went to her bed, she thought, _He read my thoughts._

Elgalad was the kindest, the red-haired Coldagnir the quietest, though she had seen him smile and once, very early, with sleep still in her eyes, she watched him stand at the dead camp-fire and lift his hand over it. The flames roused from ash as if called up to his spread fingers. Later, she decided it was a trick of the dawn light. Vanimórë was the leader, the most confident, the most dangerous and the most intimidating, but when he looked at Elgalad she saw a love in him that made him appear almost human. Almost.

The passage across the mountains brought the winter back, and yet, when she recalled it, Sunniva could only think of the cave where they had sat out a snowstorm. It had been large and dry and Vanimórë had pronounced it empty. There was indeed no smell of animals and the horses had entered without a qualm. They had lit a fire and settled down to eat and drink. Sunniva's last sight, before she slept was of Vanimórë standing at the cave-mouth like a guardian.

Spring rose from the foothills to meet them. The north wind faltered, failed and withdrew to allow its kinder sister to sweep in from the south. They followed no path Sunniva could see, and indeed the land of hills and gorse and birch seemed empty of humans. No betraying smoke bespoke settlements, and the only life they saw was that of nature itself, energetic with spring. It was beautiful and wild and uninhabited, so that when they passed a great shoulder of rock and found the riders waiting for them, Sunniva jerked reflexively on the the reins.

There two of them; identical twins, with with brilliant grey eyes and braided black hair. They lifted right hand to left shoulder and inclined their heads, and one of them said, “Welcome to Imladris.” Then he and his brother both smiled at Elgalad, who came forward to meet them, and clasped their hands.

Vanimórë rode at the back, and he reined in as they took the winding track down into the valley, watching a young boy run across the lawn far below until the angle of the path hid him from view. His laughter was without care, as a child's should be.

_Túrin. What will happen to thee?_

Only when the women had been escorted to the house did Elladan and Elrohir approach Vanimórë. They were uncertain, but willing to accept him for the sake of Glorfindel and Elgalad, who was there, his hand reaching out to touch both Vanimórë and Coldagnir as if reassuring them. On the journey, Elgalad had spoken much to Coldagnir, who was grateful for it. Vanimórë had listened to their soft, shy conversations and not intruded, but he was curious at the Maia's reaction to Elgalad. Perhaps that warmth, that gentleness was what he truly needed.

“Welcome, son of Sauron.” The twins spoke together. “And welcome truly, for we know of you.”

“Then I am doubly honored.”

“Rooms have been prepared.” They looked at Coldagnir delicately, without words. Glorfindel had told them about him. “You were right to bring the women here, and if they wish, they may dwell with the Dúnedain in time. There is a distance imposed by their origins that will place them as victims, not as a disgrace, and in the main, the Dúnedain are a wise people whom have known great loss.”

“I want them to be well looked after,” Vanimórë said, his smile glinting a warning. “But I am sure thou shalt ensure it.”

“We will,” Elrohir assured him. “For them, and in memory of our mother.”

~~~

Later, bathed and changed, Vanimórë went to the balcony, listening to the murmur of womens' voices coming from the rooms that bordered the garden. He had been given Glorfindel's chambers, and said that he, Elgalad and Coldagnir would sleep together. He still wished to keep the Maia close and naturally, Elgalad. They could share Glorfindel's bed, Hells, he thought with a smile, four people could sleep in that bed, but he did not trust himself so close to Elgalad. It had been hard enough in Edric's house. He would rest, if he needed to, on one of the settles.

He glanced round as the flicker of pale hair caught his peripheral vision. Beleg walked across the lawn and stopped at the foot of the balcony steps. Vanimórë gestured to him to come up.

“Thou didst speak to me and tell me to remain here,” Beleg said in his unexpectedly gentle voice. “I have remained, though I think I will come to regret it.”

“Thou didst recognize the pattern here and stayed because it is not in thee to flee from pain, Cúthalion.”

“A child who looks like my beloved,” Beleg murmured. “I only pray that this one will not be scarred as _he_ was. His has parents who love him, and there is no great Enemy now.” One of his hands curled around the slender pillar.

“There will always be enemies.”

“Even so.”

Elgalad, his hair wet to his knees, came out of the bedchamber and stopped. His smile illuminated the room as he walked to Beleg, his hands held out. Although Vanimórë was expecting it, the similarities were so strong that he caught his breath. As they stood in profile to him, they might have been brothers.

“I h-have heard so m-much of thee,” Elgalad said. “I am so g-glad to meet thee, k-kinsman.”

Beleg looked charmed, startled. His own smile was a reflection of Elgalad's.  
“And I have heard of thee,” he replied. “From Elladan and Elrohir.” He kissed Elgalad's brow and then his lips and looked at Vanimórë for a moment, perhaps remembering his words: _I think it takes one of thy kin to love those of us who demand so much, Cúthalion._  
Coldagnir paused as he stepped through the door, and Vanimórë tilted his head in a beckoning gesture.  
“Come,” he said, and they went out into the flower-bright gardens.

 _Come,_ echoed a voice and they both looked up. Above them, where a track lead upward through rock and heather to a place where a king's grave lay, a woman stood in robes of red and white. They went to her. ~

~~~


	8. ~ Dreams of Light and Fire ~

  
The fire plunged and screamed like a wild horse in the wind. Fëanor felt its caress on his skin and turned, laughing at it. The flames kissed him, the woman who walked out of them kissed him. She looked like all the women he had known, and her hair lightened to copper, her skin to milk. She was Nerdanel as she had been before Varda cramped her generous sensuality.  
 _I should have guessed,_ he thought while he could still think. _But I thought it was truly me she shrank from, that it was my fault, and I hated that. My fury blinded me to the truth of it._

“This is my night, Fëanáro,” Dana said in Nerdanel's voice. “And thou wilt pay thy dues to me, as all men – and women – do.”

“My lady,” he bowed. “Of course.”

~~~

Later, the Elves slept under furs in Fëanor's pavilion. In all the encampment, only Fëanor himself and Glorfindel were awake. When the untended fire had eaten itself to ash, when the wind had chased the clouds far to the north, they bore each one into the tent, brought bowls of warm, scented water to cleanse them and combed hair tangled with flowers and grass. After, they disposed them as innocently as children and drew furs over them. Huan padded in and lay himself out on the floor. Fëanor ran a hand over his great head and the hound blinked once, bright and amused, then sighed and closed them.

Glorfindel looked at his uncle. Fëanor's hair was wet after his plunge into the lake, and the marks of lusts' combat dappled his skin, dark against the white flesh. His eyes shone brilliantly. He was not even weary, Glorfindel thought, only briefly languorous in the aftermath.

“I wonder what they dream of,” Fëanor murmured, and smiled with great love. Slowly he walked down the space between the sleeping Elves.

“They dream of this night, and will for many nights to come.”

“So will I.” Fëanor paused, gazing down at the two frost-pale heads of Eluréd and Elurín, with Daeron between them. In the dim light of the braziers, it looked as if his once-dark hair had absorbed the twins silver, laying ice over ebony.

“They will never be whole,” Glorfindel said. “None of us will.”

“What is wholeness?” Fëanor asked. “If I could wake and feel no grief, no hate, no desire for anything, any-one, would I be whole? If I were unable to feel those emotions would I be whole? Wouldst thou? We would be uncaring and unchanging. That is not life. And so we live, with our memories, and with our flaws, with our pain.” He raised his head then, his expression unfathomable. “Let them dream awhile.” He paced to the inner flap, then turned. “Whatever thou didst, and their drug, it was glorious.”

“The effects of the drugs is mostly in the mind, as I have said before. And I did nothing. Thou didst.”

His uncle laughed. “I needed it. They needed it. And I do understand the constraints of rulership and politics. Some things can never be known. It is a game to me, but not to Fingolfin.” He glanced at his half-brother's quiet, beautiful face. “Not to Maglor. And I love them enough not to force them.”

 _That is true, and no, thou wilt never force them,_ Glorfindel thought. _Thou wilt goad them, pluck at the harpstrings of their hearts and nerves until the day will come when they will surrender. But it will never be easy for them. Those who love thee choose a stony road, Fëanáro, and those who desire thee a harder one yet. But they will tread it willing and unwilling, for they know that what lies at the end of it is worth all they suffer._

Fëanor glittered at him then vanished into the inner rooms. He emerged not long after, dressed as Glorfindel was, his hair bound back, and he tied back the flaps so that he could sit at his table and watch the sleepers.

“Come,” he invited Glorfindel, who nodded and joined him, drinking mulled cyser, listening to the cries of waterbirds. No-one was stirring yet. Fëanor's desire had spread like the wildfire it was through all the Elves, and Glorfindel had chosen to give them rest. It would be a mild, quiet day when they woke.

“I know thy thoughts,” Glorfindel said after a while and following the trend of his uncle's, and the direction of his eyes. “I am selfish, but it is not the same, as thy desire and bond with Fingolfin, or any-one else. Legolas and Elgalad were gifts to Vanimórë and I, something we needed after so many years of grief and war. I do not command Legolas, but I will not share him.”

“What if it were his choice?” Fëanor lifted his brows.

Glorfindel's jaw tightened. “I do not own him, but some people are not made for these games, Fëanor. The bloodline of Beleg Cúthalion stems from one who loved a proud, intransigent and arrogant man deeply and dearly, and it breeds true.” He cast up his eyes at Fëanor's taunting smile. “Oh, very well ! yes, there are similarities. When Legolas came into my life I had seen too much death. I watched the Elves leaving these shores to go back into a prison that most of them did not even realize _was_ a prison, or would not admit to knowing. I saw Gil-galad's soul consigned to the Void, and Tindómion live after as if each thought were pain. I was bitter, cynical and Legolas barely past youth when he came to Imladris, grieving, innocent, lost and needing love. Elgalad was raised by one who was a slave all his life and lived through horrors unspeakable. We should not have been their choices, but we were.”

“Thou doth think thyself so hard to love?” Fëanor turned the winecup between his hands. “No wonder thou needest Legolas to show thee thy true self. And once thou wert that, innocent, loving. I never was.”

“Thou wert always loving. But the power of that love is too much for some, for how can one match it?”

“It is matched,” Fëanor said firmly.

Glorfindel smiled. “Yes.”

“Love is an act of courage. And do we not have that, now? All of us?”

“Some of us,” Glorfindel agreed, liking him in this mood, but never quite trusting him. “And the rest, after this night, will come to it. But thou hast never needed courage to love. No-one has ever had the power to hurt thee.”

“Look deeper,” Fëanor said, quite gently. “Any-one I love has that power: I loved thee in my way, and thine obduracy in cleaving to Turgon hurt and enraged me. That was a rejection of love, Glorfindel. It would seem I cannot accept rejection. Nerdanel, thou...And one look, one word spoken to me by Fingolfin or my sons as Orodreth, as Borniven looked and spoke, as Rosriel did before Dana freed her, would hurt me.”

“Thou didst want to possess me, uncle,” Glorfindel said. “Body, soul. Is that love?”

“Is it not? Of course I wanted to possess thee. I wish to possess all those I love and need. But they also own _me,_ body and soul. It never runs one way only, and I do not make mistakes, Glorfindel, in those I choose. They can always give as much as I. Thou art no different to me in thy possessiveness of Legolas. I wager Vanimórë Gorthaurion is the same with his Elgalad.” He sipped the warm drink. “In Tirion I saw potentiality; a bud that needed to flower. Thou wert not quite willing to cross the boundary between the thought of desiring Ecthelion and the action of bedding him. I broke those chains for thee.”

“Yes,” Glorfindel met his eyes in a moment of silence. There was still anger in him directed at both himself and his uncle, but Fëanor had been an instrument, whether he knew it or not; the fire that roused other fires in defiance of the Valar, as Eru intended. “And yet the Laws were still in place, and when I knew the full horror of the punishment, it took Ages of the world before I loved enough to ignore them. I was right to do so, but even so, I feared for Legolas.”

“Let me tell thee something: So would I have done. But Eru would not choose a coward or a hypocrite as his Vala of the Elves.”

“I know now that I was right to ignore the Laws, but to return to last night. There is no harm in taking several lovers if one finds it easy. There are some who do not.”

“And some,” Fëanor looked through the opening. “Who do.”

~~~

The first to wake, as Glorfindel had planned, were Daeron, Eluréd and Elurín. They rose, reached for the clothes folded and laid beside them, and dressed in silence. The night was in their somnolent movements, behind their eyes. Glorfindel took a water-skin, rose and went to them. They walked out into the quiet morning, drank and gazed across the lake. No words were spoken, but when Fëanor came, the three turned to him and one by one they rested their hands on his breast for a moment, before walking away.

“Who can say that they are not whole in their way?” Fëanor murmured. “They are like vases which have been broken and mended by a master. So are we all. The cracks do not show from the outside. But who is to judge them?”

“No-one,” Glorfindel said.

They turned as Dana came toward them. Her flesh was polished obsidian, her lips folded into a faint, secret smile. Flowers twined about her head, wrists and ankles. She smelled of incense and the spring earth.

“Well, my children?” Her eyes laughed with affection, the pride of a mother for her sons, and deep appreciation. They bowed and moved to kiss her, not quickly, their lips on hers and touching one anothers. “Thou hast given thy people back to me, Fëanáro. I expected it, but I thank thee.”

“And I thank thee, Lady.”

She touched their faces in benediction and strolled from the encampment. They watched her until Fanari and Rosriel emerged from the pavilion. Fanari wore yellow, Rosriel green, unadorned but for the silver girdles about their hips. Their hair was loose and tumbled; they might have been Dana's handmaidens, and last night they certainly had been.

“I thank thee for accepting my invitation,” Fëanor said, taking a hand of each and saluting them with a kiss.

“How kind of thee to ask us, my lord,” Fanari responded, demure and polite, and curtsied. He grinned as she passed to Glorfindel and exchanged a few words with him.

“I thank thee also, Sire,” Rosriel bent her head and Fëanor winked.

~~~

The two women took the paved road that ran between Fëanor and Fingolfin's encampments and walked in silence. Fanari felt the stone under her feet and the years unnumbered of its existence, going back into the fire and ice of Arda's long birth, and under it was the earth, that plunged down through lightless water and chasms to a place where rock and mineral melted; that place of the Mother's birth. The sun touched her skin and she knew its power, so far from the world, so titanic. She stepped from the path and the grass brushed cool against her feet.  
Rosriel said her name and she turned back; she knew she was smiling.

 _Glorfindel will use his powers to cast forgetfulness on all but Fëanor,_ Dana had told her. _I think it wise. There are too many rivalries, too much pride and politics here for such memories to give comfort. They will remember in time of course, in flashes like lightning, then more fully, but I wish thee to know because thou hast no reason to be ashamed, and when Rosriel begins to remember, she may need a woman to talk to._

Glorfindel had known of course. He had looked at Fanari and nodded in collusive silence.

“Come.” She took Rosriel's arm. No-one was awake as they came to Fanari's tent and suddenly realizing they were hungry, heaped platters with dried fruit and yesterdays bread, spread with honey.

“How dost thou feel?” Fanari asked, knowing how she felt, and not embarrassed in the least. She was both exhilarated and calm. It had been as Dana said, a night with no past, and no future just the glory of _now._

“Not yet awake,” Rosriel murmured. “Am I dreaming now?”

“Perhaps.”

When Rosriel was in her own tent, Fanari walked down to the shore and let the ripples wash over her feet, cold and pure. She had taken a moment, as she slipped on her gown, to note the position in which the Elves lay sleeping in Fëanor's pavilion. They were placed in order of familial relationships so she woke next to her son and Rosriel beside Gil-galad. Clever, and reassuring. They would all know _what_ had happened, but though they might guess, they would not _know_ whom their lovers had been until memory returned. She laughed to herself, wondering if she could forbear to tease her son about Gil-galad, but the fact was she truly knew nothing save as the night had touched her. She had been a participant, not an observer.

~~~

Maglor slept, between Maedhros and Celegorm, and Fëanor looked at him, loving him. Tranquility had melted into the bones of his face, and he looked like the young Canafinwë of Tirion, on the begetting day when he passed into manhood. Fëanor had fashioned him a great harp, carving the inlays of the frame and setting them with patterns of flowers and fire.  
Maglor had ran his fingers over the strings, sounding notes that hung in the air like soft mill of rain, and smiled up at his father.

“Thou art fire and music, my son,” Fëanor had said, and kissed his brow.

 _And still thou art,_ he thought.

Glorfindel said, “I see many things now, uncle, and this I will say: Beyond thy kinship, I do not what is the bond between Maglor and thee, deeper than desire, deeper even than love. But I do know that there is one, and even hadst thou not seduced him to the edge in Tirion, still he would have wanted thee, and been tortured with shame for his so-called sin. And thou wouldst have known his feelings, as thou doth know all thy sons' hearts. If there is any comfort for him it lies in the very heart of his love and his guilt: that it is reciprocal.”

“I do not love him more than my other sons.” Fëanor's face was suddenly somber. “But thou art right: it is more than lust. And if he hated me for it, I would have never been anything other than his father. If he ever did come to hate me, I would ask his forgiveness.”

“But he will not,” Glorfindel told him. “I see the thread joining thee, but then it passes into a place where I cannot follow. I think I am not meant to know, not yet. But thou shalt, one day, and so will Maglor.”

“And Fingolfin?” The smile flickered again; white fire, wildfire.

“There is nothing either of thee need to know,” Glorfindel said.

~~~

To Fingolfin, everything was clear up to the point when Fëanor walked naked before the bonfire. After that, the fire had reached out its arms and drawn him in. And now, he dreamed.

He had felt hands and lips on him, the impress of bodies, the softness of breasts, the hardness of men. Light slid like oil down a rippling black mane identical to Fëanor's, but Fingolfin knew it was not. Maglor turned like a man in a dream toward him. His silver eyes caught the light like a mirror. Maglor, once a prisoner of Sauron, who held that wound burned into the older, deeper one of losing all those he had loved, whom had watched his world fall as a warrior falls in battle, beaten to his knees by killing strokes.

 _And the greatest grief, his father's death..._

There had been a night, at Mithrim, after Maedhros had relinquished his claim to the high kingship, when Maglor had come to Fingolfin's tent. If his nephew had wept since his father's death, Fingolfin did not know. There was such a sense of wrongness in Fëanor's absence that he himself could not accept it. Tears would be an admittance that this canted world where Fëanor did not exist was real. And that would be unbearable  
They sat in the silence that had grown between them without their realizing, their thoughts flowing together and the same way, as a river does. Fingolfin did not know what he did to bring that intake of breath to Maglor's throat, perhaps the movement as he picked up his wine, or a shift of lamplight on his face, but he turned back and saw the tears. Maglor whispered, “Thou art so like him.”

“So art thou,” Fingolfin said with difficultly, and they both wept then, racking sobs of and fury and anguish that neither were free of in life – or death.

~~~

In the pulse-beat of light, Fingolfin saw Fëanor walk toward him, a predator of fire. He felt one steely arm go about him, saw the other lock about Maglor, drawing the three of them together. Something struck from his head to his heels and ran out into the earth itself. With it drained the iron of his resolve and the last coherent thoughts. He joined starving kisses one to the other like a chain that linked the passion of the night, felt himself as each link of fire, taking, giving, sharing. His soul recognized those who possessed him, those he possessed. His dreams brought the faces back, but when he woke, he did not remember them.

It was very quiet. The air smelled of grass and flowers. At the scratch of quill on parchment, he sat up. Fëanor was sitting at a table in the inner room, his head bent as he wrote. He looked serious and calm and more beautiful than the Silmarilli. Fingolfin ached and his whole body felt oversensitive, but there was no real pain, only an afterglow that lapped the discomfort like smooth wine.

Fëanor had a habit of drumming the fingers of his left hand lightly when he paused to think when writing or drawing. Fingolfin had watched him at times in their father's library, if he believed his half-brother oblivious. Of course, Fëanor had never been oblivious. It was a mannerism that imitated the workings of his mind, rapid and impatient, or slow and considering, as now, a rhythmical _tap, taptap, tap._ Then he looked up, straight into Fingolfin's eyes. For a long moment their gazes clung, wordless, saying more than a thousand words ever could, and Fëanor rose, bringing out a cup of water. Fingolfin took it and drank, feeling the trickle of drops on his chest. Fëanor dabbed them with a fingertip.

“Didst thou sleep well?” he asked, mild as the morning.

“Yes,” Fingolfin answered, waiting for anything in his brother's face or eyes to tell him why he was here, what he had done. Or rather, since he knew what he surely had done, with whom. Did he even need confirmation?

“Good,” Fëanor said, and went back to his writing.

Looking around for his neatly folded clothes, Fingolfin did not see Fëanor's private smile.

~~~


	9. ~ All Choices Lead To Sorrow ~

  
Dana smiled at Vanimórë. It was smile of an approving mother.  
“Thou hast done well.” She nodded her head toward the house below them.

“I was a fool not to have anticipated what would happen to them.” He folded his arms and gazed down at the house.

“Yes,” she agreed. “But I grant there were extenuating circumstances.” She turned her eyes to Coldagnir. “And thou art doing well also.”

“Well enough, Lady?” he wondered.

“So far, yes. Clever of Fëanor to have thee take the Blood-Kiss. And that is not an Oath that cuts one way only. He would not ask it of many.”

“I know,” he said, his cheeks tinting.

She nodded. “Well, now we come to it: Thou art here, Vanimórë, and there are things I am bound to tell thee. Thou wilt learn it anyhow from the Peredhil, and being the man thou art, will not ignore it.”

He turned his head.

“Thou didst feel it,” she said. “In the north.”

“Yes,” he took a step toward her. A cold fist clenched inside him. “What is it?”

She moved her hand in a brief gesture.  
“Look.”

Vanimórë went unnaturally still, still as a thundercloud before a storm breaks. Then, “ **No !** ”  
He blazed up into a power he had scarce touched. Imladris receded beneath him, the Towers of Mist were crumpled spikes, and each side of them, the land was stained green with spring, save in the north, where clouds drooped wearily over Angmar, a place he had never yet been.

He flung himself toward it like vengeance, to smash through the corrupt sorcery of Malantur, the Mouth of Sauron...  
And the world vanished. He found himself rushing toward a glow of red fire.  
Dana's temple.  
She was waiting for him.

“What in the Hells art thou doing?” he shouted.

“Thou art bound by fate, Vanimórë,” she said, unyielding as the pillars against which red light spattered. “It is not for thee to destroy Malantur.”

“ _What? Why?_ I do not believe this ! Thou hast turned thy face from the pain of the people of Angmar, and hidden it from _me_ also !” The fire in the massive bowls clawed upward.

“Yes. I had to. But I feel every pain suffered by the children. Do not think that this does not hurt me.” She paced toward him.

“Thou art asking me to let Malantur live and continue to perpetrate atrocities !” Even the thought of the creature twisted Vanimórë's sanity to screaming. Malantur, the Mouth whom had long forgotten his name and with it, his humanity. There was no pity in him, no empathy; he clung to a deathless life wrought of sorcery and blood-magic, and fed it with slaughter. His tortures were unspeakable, and unlike Sauron who might use cruelty as a lesson or an example, Malantur needed no reason at all to main and kill. He gloried in the suffering of others, and as he worked on his victims, a rictus of pleasure would split his mouth wide, a slug-trail of saliva oozing from one corner. Vanimórë had seen the man's skin gloss wet with a poisonous dew of excitement, his breath quicken in grunts of laughter. When he was sated, however, he was clever, controlled and useful to Sauron, whom had used him to punish his son at times, knowing how Vanimórë loathed him. Sometimes Vanimórë's punishment did not involve rape, but the witnessing of others being violated and broken. Rendered powerless by Sauron, he could only watch as part of him broke with the prisoners, feeling the point where the agony and horror became too much, and they went mad.

“I want him _dead._ ” His voice came thick with detestation.

“So do I,” Dana said.

“And yet thou didst let him breed half-orcs upon women?”

“I have done what I can – ”

“No,” he snarled, cutting across her. “No-one _ever_ does all they can !”

He found his way blocked again and again. The Mother's voice came to him down passages lit only by his own fury.

“One day thou wilt be beyond the control of any Power that exists save one. But that time is not yet.”

“Malantur is raising an army in Angmar, and I must _let him?_ He was bred to power even before Sauron changed him. He will not be content to sit in Angmar, and there is nothing in the north for him but ice. He will come south.”

“Yes,” Dana agreed, close by him. “He will. And that too is fated, Vanimórë. The wheel has begun its revolution, and thou canst not prevent it. Neither, for that matter, can I.”

He span to face her. “Explain this...this _madness_ to me!”

“Think !” she commanded.

“What about?”

Dana's fingers dug into his arms. “Thy vision is too narrow, young God. Vengeance is not thine.”

“I will not do _nothing !_ ”

Her eyes sucked his wrath inward. She took him in and encased him her living flesh, in the warm, moist earth. He was blind, eaten, enclosed like a child in the womb. Her words came like a heartbeat.  
“In Sud Sicanna, thou didst everything in thy power to protect the women, the children, the old, the sick, and even so, many crimes were committed out of thy sight. And thou wert not oblivious to it. And I? I am the Mother of the Earth, and yet I am not omnipresent, though I feel the pain of those who suffer, and the prayers of those who cry out to me. And it wounds me as it wounds thee.”

He tasted blood from his own bitten mouth.  
“Then do not stop me,” he said hoarsely.

“ _I_ am not stopping thee, Vanimórë. I brought thee here to give thee time to think.” She flicked her robes aside; they moved like water as she circled him. “The Mouth serves a purpose not his own, whatever he thinks.”

Vanimórë said nothing. His jaw clenched and ached with strain.

“After my blood went into the Earth,” she continued. “I dreamed, and saw what passed through the Ages. Melkor had a very personal hatred against me, as he did against Fëanor, and Túrin's father, whom thou didst see in thy youth.”

“Yes.”

“I was awoken. Fëanor has returned.” Vanimórë saw a subtle smile flicker on her mouth, as if she was thinking of something secret and amusing. “It is only fitting that Túrin rise from the grave, to say unto Melkor, _I am here._ Húrin went into death and his spirit journeyed on, as did Morwen's and Nienor's. But Túrin made a vow as he died. Thou didst hear it.”

 _It is not ended,_ he had said.

“He cannot break that vow,” she said soft now. “It was forged by blood, by hate, by guilt. And by love. Thou knowest the power of such oaths; they become greater than those who speak them. They bend fate and time itself. Neither of us can unmake Túrin's oath. And Malantur is part of it.”

~~~

“My lord?”

Vanimórë's eyes flashed open. He stood as he had before, on the little alp where Gil-galad's grave lay. Dana was not there, but Coldagnir was looking at him gravely. Elgalad must have come up from the house, for he was holding Vanimórë's arms.

“Did I not move from this spot?” he asked Coldagnir. Who shook his head.

“What is it?” Elgalad lifted a hand to touch Vanimórë's face. “I felt th-thee. What h-happened?”

Vanimórë drew him close. “I have to talk to both of thee.”

~~~

“I _cannot_ act. I have tried. Yet to do _nothing...!_ ”

“Túrin bound his soul to the world for thousands of years. That cannot be dismissed as nought.” Coldagnir's voice was temperate, but that and Elgalad's hands on him, settled the breath in Vanimórë's throat.

“No. It is not nought. No grief is, but neither is the horror of the people of Angmar, that they are enduring now, as I sit here.”

“Wilt thou t-tell them?” Elgalad made a gesture toward the house.

“They already know something,” Vanimórë said. “But yes, I must speak to them.”

~~~

He sat for a long time after, telling them he needed to be alone. Glorfindel was on the borders of his mind, not intruding, but waiting as a friend waits until he is needed. The sun had moved when Vanimórë at last opened to him. Dana must have spoken to him, for Glorfindel's soul-fire now emanated frustrated wrath.

 _What purpose do I serve if I cannot use my power against evil?_

 _I know how thou doth feel,_ Glorfindel said. _Yet we opened Túrin's tomb so that this might happen. Maeglin returned to remake Anglachel. We have played our own parts in this, Vanimórë, and willingly._

 _I drove the orcs far west of their ancient holds into Angmar so that Malantur could use them. Hells !_

 _So that Carreg and Cell would flee the orcs to bear a child in safety. What might have happened had Malantur seized her?_

Vanimórë curled his hands into fists until the bones ached. _How can I look aside?_

 _I do not know,_ Glorfindel said.

 _Morgoth and Sauron tried to make monsters grow in women._  
Vanimórë tucked himself back against the rock face, leaned his arms on his knees.

 _I know,_ Glorfindel murmured.

 _Not orcs, but something else, something like me, I suppose. They both failed until my sister and I were born..._ Glorfindel's presence strengthened like a hand gripping his shoulder. _I cannot think of the suffering Malantur has inflicted on the women of Angmar, and turn away._

 _I tried to go._

 _Of course, thou wouldst. Are we simply slaves to fate then?_

 _Perhaps we are. This is greater than us. I think all oaths are._

Vanimórë cursed aloud, and tried once more to break through the barrier about Angmar. He was rebuffed, not with pain or cruelty, but with absolute force, and not by Dana this time. The futile struggle drained him and his mind drifted. The waterfall's song was swollen by a wilder roar, and he saw Cabed-en-Aras over Teiglin, watched Túrin dying in agony, heard him vow, _“It is not ...ended.”_  
Yes, the Man's promise was as potent as Morgoth's doom. Túrin's passionate love, his dreadful grief had, on his death, hammered his spirit into Arda. He had, Vanimórë realized with a kind of awe, denied his soul freedom.

 _That was what Dana wanted me to think of. That is what prevents us from acting: A Mortal man's vow._

Vanimórë thought of the eagerness in Túrin's soul when it was released from the cairn on Tol Morwen, he thought of it housed in the body of a young child living in this peaceful haven, loved and loving.

 _I will go mad thinking of this..._

 _Vanimórë._ It was Glorfindel's, strong, golden, warm with empathy. _For Túrin to fulfil his promise, there must be similarities to his old life. Melkor is not here in body, but there has to be an evil: thus the Mouth came to Angmar. Thou didst see it in him? His fear of thee? He fled there because he knew thou hadst never been that far north._

Vanimórë raised his head.

He must have been near-invisible, there in his nook of shade, or the boy's eyes were dazzled by the sun on the water, for they did not see him. Túrin puffed a little as he gained the top of the steep path, and cast a look over his shoulder as if to reassure himself that no-one had followed him. It was a mischievous look. This was a place he had been forbidden to come, Vanimórë thought, and not because Gil-galad's grave lay here, but because of the pool. The day was warm enough that Túrin wore only a tunic and tiny leather shoes on his feet. He took them off, and padded to the edge of the water, dipping his toes in with a squeak and giggle at the chill. Where time and torrent had pushed up the pebbles and stones to form a natural dam, it was shallow enough for a child to paddle, and Túrin gingerly stepped in, wading deeper until the water swirled about his knees.

Vanimórë watched him; black hair falling about the small face, with its great grey eyes and rounded hints of the man he would become, if he lived...And while he lived, Vanimórë had to ignore Angmar and the evil there.

 _The Mouth serves a purpose not his own._

His purpose was to play a part in Túrin's new life. But if Túrin died of disease, met some accident, Malantur would serve no purpose at all...

 _Túrin is the only thing that stands between the Mouth and death..._

So quickly that if he blinked he would not have seen it, so quietly that there was no sound, the child's feet went from under him on the slick stones.

For what seemed like a lifetime, nothing moved but the water.

 _The stones dip steep there toward the deeper part under the fall._

 _All I have to do is turn away for long enough..._

A little dark head rose from the water amid a flurry of frantic splashing. His cry was choked off by swallowed water, and he vanished a second time.

 _One child's life for many._

– Vanimórë plucked Túrin from the pool and strode onto the grass, holding him as he coughed and vomited water.

“It is all right.” He held the trembling child as Túrin dropped to his knees in a paroxysm of retching.  
 _Beleg !_ He flashed an image that sparked an explosion of fear. Beleg must have been close; within heartbeats he was in the glade, and kneeling beside the child, lifting him, smoothing his back.  
“What happened?” he demanded. “I thought he was with his father. He never comes here.”

“He slipped and fell into the deeper part.” Vanimórë rose, hearing his voice come oddly cold. “He will be all right, but get something hot into him and have his mother put him to bed.”

~~~

Elgalad and Coldagnir were in the gardens below and followed as Vanimórë walked past them. He did not look at them as he entered the guest chambers.

He had almost let a child die. A shudder drove through him, deep as an impalement.

Elgalad's touch brought him back to himself. He turned, seeing himself in the mirror of those grey eyes and hating what he saw. He pulled away.  
“Túrin did not see me up there. I was in shadow. I should have brought him down at once. People can drown in a hand-span of water, and children do, if they are not watched. For a moment, I knew that if the boy died, I could go to Angmar, put an end to Malantur, release those he has enslaved. When Túrin slipped – ” he drew a breath and spat at himself, “I almost did not act.”

“My l-lord.” But there was no shock, no censure in Elgalad's words, only understanding. “Thou wouldst n-not have let him d-die.”

“I considered it,” Vanimórë threw at him, not understanding how Elgalad could look at him as if he knew all his soul. And loved it.  
“Do not look at me like that ! Art thou so blind? I almost _did_ let him die ! Stop seeing me as some kind of noble hero, thou knowest nothing of me !”

“I know th-thee.” Elgalad's face shook with pity and Vanimórë jerked away as if from fire.

“No ! Thou art a besotted _fool !_ ”

The silence tolled like a bell. Elgalad stilled, his hand still outstretched, his expression gone blank, like a child after being slapped for no reason.

“No,” Vanimórë said on a breath. “No. Forgive me. I did not mean it !” He reached out to take Elgalad's hand, but it was withdrawn, and Elgalad turned away.

“P-perhaps I am a fool,” he whispered. “And still, I d-do know th-thee.” He went silently past Coldagnir who touched him fleetingly. Something passed between them Vanimórë knew, staring after Elgalad, then he span and slammed his head against the wall. Pain burst in his skull, but not enough, not enough...

“Do not take so much blame on thyself for the child,” Coldagnir said through it. “There was a shadow over thee, and him also. I felt it when we entered Imladris. I wondered that thou didst not.”

Vanimórë raised his head.

“It is an ancient shadow,” the Maia said. “And we both know it well. It was Melkor.”

~~~

“It is not Melkor himself, of course,” Coldagnir poured wine. “But his touch, his curse out of the deep past. He saw Túrin's death. He saw all the House of Húrin die. His malice against them spans the ages, and their deaths did not ameliorate it.”

Vanimórë whispered, “Then the curse woke with Túrin?”

“Yes. And it is strong enough to shape what happens in this life.”

“And how much Morgoth would like to see Túrin die again.”

 _I would have stepped in had I believed thou wouldst let him drown,_ Glorfindel told him and Dana said, _I too had no fear of it. It is not in thee._

“I should not even have been tempted.” Vanimórë drank off the wine. “I should have known !”

Dana's mind-voice came gently.  
 _For a moment, when thou wert unguarded, Melkor's hatred touched thee._

“Morgoth sought to use me to kill Túrin – ” Vanimórë hurled the empty cup across the room. “He knows. Somehow he knows. He is not physically in the world, but he is not blind in the Void either. He was able to show those banished there what passed on the Earth. There is to much of him in Arda for him to be unaware.”

 _Yes, even so,_ Glorfindel agreed. _His presence is everywhere on the Earth. And he knows thee. Thine is a familiar mind to him._

Vanimórë sat down abruptly, clasping his aching head in his hands.

  
~~~

Elgalad had not return to the rooms when darkness fell. Coldagnir went out, and when he returned said that he was with Beleg and the twins. Vanimórë had known that, but he waited. No apology could suffice, yet one was due when Elgalad came from the kinder companionship of the others. Night had webbed the valley when Vanimórë drew himself from introspection.

“Thou shouldst rest,” Coldagnir said.

“I am not tired.”  
Not tired, but sick at heart and enraged. No sleep would cure it.

“Thou hast wrestled with fate. Thou art weary.”

 _He is right,_ Dana told him.

“Not yet,” Vanimórë said hardly to both.

“Why dost thou hate thyself so much?” Coldagnir did not know he was going to ask the question until it passed his lips. “Thou wouldst not have let the child die. Elgalad knows. He had no doubts.”

Vanimórë did not reply for a while, his eyes indrawn. There was a bruise on his brow, but already it was fading into the white flesh.  
“I assumed too many things,” he said at last. “When I believed Morgoth gone forever, I rejoiced. To know he tried to influence me, is a terrible thought, as if I were a Man and touched by a plague-carrier. I should have recognized him; I did not. I assumed the Mouth was dead, and when I learned he was not, I found that I cannot slay him. I raged at one whose only fault is that he trusts me.”  
“Why do I hate myself, balrog?” His teeth flashed white in a snarl. “Thou art a fine one to ask me that. I see the guilt in thee.”

“There will always be guilt,” Coldagnir said softly. “I followed some-one I feared because I wanted to taste the delights of a body. I turned away from love, and I am too much of a coward to go into the dark.”

“Thy place is not in the Void,” Vanimórë said dismissively. “Glorfindel saw that, as did Fëanor. I think I belong there, but Morgoth will have to damn well fight for me.”

“Elgalad would never permit it.”

Vanimórë's smile was a ragged ghost of the habitual brilliant flash.  
“What has Elgalad ever done that he should be bound to me? I need him, but what can _I_ give _him?_ ”

Coldagnir stared at him. “Thyself.”

“Myself.” Vanimórë said with contempt. “I wish he had found another to love, and forgotten me. He may yet.”

And that, Coldagnir knew, was a lie.  
“And so thou doth try to push him away.”

“Yes. If I had any decency in me, I would make him hate me. I did try it once, and I failed. I should have followed him today, and did not. I leave him with others because I fear what I could do to him.”

“I long to be loved,” Coldagnir said simply. “And I do not feel as if I deserve it either. But I think thou art wrong in all ways. Who needs Elgalad more than thee? And it is not for thee to tell him where to bestow his love.”

Vanimórë came to his feet, drew Coldagnir to him and kissed him on the lips. “Elgalad loves thee, Fëanor loves thee in his way. I could love thee.”

“How canst thou? How can they? Was what I did any different to what this Mouth of Sauron has done?” He dropped his head into the spicy warmth of Vanimórë's throat, felt the tendons harden to steel at the name.  
“Why dost thou tolerate my presence, forgive me, yet not him.”

“Because thou art sorry for it. When Malantur faces death, as thou didst, he will regret nothing. He would do it all again. It is a lust in him and those like him.”

“Was it not in me? I wanted thee. I...got pleasure from thee.”

Vanimórë's hand clenched in his hair, forcing his head up.  
“Yes, I know. Still looking for punishment, balrog?”

“Yes.”

“Do not tempt me, tonight. Thou wouldst not enjoy it.” Vanimórë strode out into the dim garden and took a deep breath.  
 _Meluion?_

A voice beside him said, “I am here.”

Elgalad must have been sitting on the balcony. He stood up as Vanimórë turned, shame scorching him, and sadness, and impossible, desperate love.

“I am sorry,” he said, and somehow he was on one knee and Elgalad's face was above him, shining like the moon through an alabaster lamp.  
“If I could give thee a place of light and peace – if there is any such place, I would,” he said. “And I would give thee myself, cleansed of darkness, and I _cannot._ ”

Lips touched his bruised brow, his eyelids, his cheeks, and then his lips. Each kiss was like a jewel of price dropped into the hand of a beggar.

“Hush, my l-lord.” Hands were raising him, leading him back into the room. Weariness descended, soft as a cloud, and as all-encompassing. He fought it for a moment, though he knew the hand behind it.

“No, do not – ” Those deft hands disrobed him, and he found himself lying back in the cloud. It was cool and silver as rain. Another kiss, this time longer, deeper. He moaned. _No._

“Thou art th-the fool, my beloved l-lord.” The sweetness of the tone robbed the words of all insult. There was the scent of hearth-smoke and incense and then, peace.

Elgalad looked at Vanimórë's face, still so stern, as if he braced for battle even in sleep. He drew his fingers lightly across the plane of a cheek.

“I thank thee, L-Lady.”

Coldagnir was waiting for him in next room. As Elgalad closed the door and looked at him, he crossed quickly. Elgalad's face was wet against his.  
“He did not mean it.”

“That is n-not why I w-weep. It is for h-him.” Elgalad disengaged himself, walked to the fire, red embers under ash. “I wish I c-could show him the t-truth of what h-he is, that the image he has of h-himself is something seen in soot-b-blackened glass.”

Coldagnir gently glanced the fire awake.  
“I know,” he said. “I have seen it in him. He hates Melkor, he hates his father, he hates it when innocent people suffer under the heel of might. But he hates no-one more than himself. I understand that.”

Elgalad glanced up. So beautiful, Coldagnir thought, such love in his face, no wonder being close to him and forbearing to claim him was dragging Vanimórë's soul down the jagged edge of madness.

“I h-have imagined thy rape of my l-lord,” he said levelly, and Coldagnir flinched. “I have t-tried to imagine the th-things thou hast d-done. But I see contrition and p-pain in th-thee. Thou wert l-lost for a l-long time. I am truly not a f-fool. I do n-not think my l-lord is stainless. I d-do not think thee utterly b-blameless; but both of th-thee are worthy of l-love.”

“And thou.” Coldagnir heard his voice unsteady. “So much.”

The kiss surprised him even as he gave it, and for a long moment he burned in a sensation he had not known since turning his back upon the Timeless Halls and Eru's great and terrible love. When he came back from it, the fire was roaring up in the hearth like an animal, and he flattened quickly to a small, warm glow. Elgalad looked as startled as Coldagnir felt as he went to pour wine. They drank in silence.

“He c-cannot accept having n-no choice in this m-matter,” Elgalad spoke after a moment, not meeting his eyes, as Coldagnir still blazed with arousal and astonishment. His admiration for Vanimórë was tinged with awe; he must have a will of adamant to resist what Elgalad offered him. Here was a love that gave birth to legends.

“But he did have a choice.”  
 _He does not even know,_ Coldagnir realized. _He truly does not know what is in him._  
“It was simply not one he was prepared to make.”  
He watched the rain-grey eyes widen.

“Túrin,” Elgalad whispered.

“Yes. Vanimórë thinks himself a slave to fate, but he desired a choice, and forced one. It ambushed him, came unexpectedly, like an arrow from thick woods; he had to allow a child to die. And when it came to it,” Coldagnir brushed his fingers down Elgalad's jaw and throat. “he could not. And thou didst know it.”

“Yes,” Elgalad said. “As I said, I d-do know my l-lord.” ~

  
~~~


	10. ~ Where the Wild Blood Flows: Part I ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although this is part of the story, these chapters are specifically written for Ebbingnight, who bid on the Live Journal Help Pakistan Fandom Auction.
> 
> Ebbingnight, you requested: an incident of your choice involving Legolas and someone with whom Glorfindel might reasonably regard as dangerous in some way (not Fëanor or Van, though, as I don't want to affect any existing plot lines) in New Cuiviénen. Slashy goodness of some kind strongly preferred, of course!

“Be careful,” Glorfindel enjoined. “They can never be healed, at least not by me, nor Vanimórë. We would not even try. It would involve making them forget everything. Everything.”  
Legolas bent his head in understanding. Who would be arrogant enough to wipe away thousands of years?

“Their minds broke and knit askew.” There was a frown in Glorfindel's eyes, a distance, as if he looked at something far away: two exquisite, dangerous faces. “Fëanor is right. What is wholeness? Those two have found their own peace, and it is not for me to condemn them, but they attain that peace through pain: their own and others.”

“Yes,” Legolas agreed. He had seen the madness in Eluréd and Elurín's deep blue eyes, but he was not afraid of them; they had been unfailingly courteous and warm toward him, the lone Sinda among a host of _Golodhrim,_ a descendant of Doriath through his father's blood. “I can understand it, as much as any-one can who has not experienced their lives. But you do not truly think they would harm me.”

“No,” Glorfindel said. “Not harm thee.”

That seemed unusually ambiguous. Legolas surveyed the gravity of Glorfindel's face, and it was so often grave now. The last, latest revelation had driven Glorfindel into tight-seething anger, which would have been extremely arousing had the cause not been so grim. Legolas was coming to know what Elgalad had surely always known about Vanimórë: isolation by power, by pain, by responsibility, imposes a terrible loneliness. Glorfindel, though loved and respected, was becoming increasingly isolated by his status, by the unwritten disciplines of power, by the choices he must make, and the helplessness of learning that at times, there were no choices at all.  
Legolas remembered the Mouth of Sauron at the Morannon. To look at, he had been an armored man, but the reek of corruption that poured forth from him had been as strong as the stench from an opened grave. To imagine what he might be doing in Angmar was enough to twist the guts into nausea. Small wonder both Vanimórë and Glorfindel were enraged that they could not simply kill him and send him to his long-delayed death.

“Why do you not come with me?” Legolas asked, cupping Glorfindel's face in his hands, and was kissed hungrily. He returned it until both were moaning and hard, and then very quickly naked on the rugs in heaving, straining ecstasy.

“I must speak with Fëanor and Dana,” Glorfindel said after, his mouth moving over Legolas' nipple-rings and plucking at fresh waves of desire. “I will meet with thee later.”

~~~

When Legolas left the next morning, Fána, Finrod's gift to him was waiting, the pack-pony close by. The stallion's long-suffering look at the sturdy beast made clear his objection to the steady pace they must needs hold to for the two day ride, and Legolas laughed at him.  
“There will be time to run, my friend.”

Glorfindel watched him from the pavilion, the sinuous, barely-curbed wildness of his gait an invitation. Legolas walked like a dancer, like a warrior. His hair was bound back in one thick braid, showing the tight allure of his buttocks, and eyes followed him. They always had, but never had Glorfindel been so aware of it.

 _I was wrong._

 _I knew that would trouble thee,_ Vanimórë's mind-voice out of the distant north.

 _I will not even ask thee what thou wouldst have done._

 _Elgalad and I have not been lovers. What can I say?_

 _I know thee._ Glorfindel walked to the bluff that fell to the shore of Gaear Gwathluin, the waters breathing soft and easy, like a woman asleep. _More, I have seen thy life. Thou art familiar enough with slavery not to act like a despot._

 _Until I face the same situation – and yes, I am sure I will – I cannot know, my friend. And I am damned sure I can act like a despot without even trying. But that is not all that eats at thee, is it?_

 _No,_ Glorfindel admitted, and Vanimórë did not ask the question. He respected one's privacy, and Glorfindel appreciated that.  
 _Such nights are not about love, or not wholly; they are a celebration of life and freedom._

 _Thou hast the power to ensure he remembers nothing._ Vanimórë said in that indifferent tone that infused more into his words than outright disapproval or doubt.

 _I will not do that._

 _No. But thou art too hard on thyself. Our powers do not make us immune to mistakes, but unlike that triad in Valinor, we do not believe all we do is right. We are learning. We will always be learning._

 _Fëanor said that our souls would naturally seek those we wanted._ Glorfindel opened the link between them to see Vanimórë's face, watched it smile ruefully.

 _And thou couldst not bear the thought of Legolas desiring another. Well, that is human._

 _And yet I –_

 _That is also human. And desire is not love._ Vanimórë reached through the leagues that separated them, and kissed him fiercely.  
 _That is not love. It seems to me that this a problem of different cultures, and thine own jealousy of course._ A taunting twinkle. _In Imladris, Legolas was a guest of the Noldor. He is a prince, and would have adapted to Imladris and its customs, as a good guest does. But we both witnessed the last Solstice in Mordor. There were Silvan Elves there._

 _Desire is not love,_ Glorfindel echoed him. _Yes. I did not think of Legolas' culture because I did not wish to._

 _Perhaps thou shouldst,_ Vanimórë said. _Thou hast thine own reasons for what thou art doing now, although let me tell thee that guilt is wearying, and damned annoying for other people to live with. So, when thou hast drunk the dregs, **talk** to him._

~~~

Five days had passed since Nost-na-Lothion, and from the glances exchanged by certain people, it seemed that they were beginning to remember their lovers. Some of those couplings were extremely surprising, and the tension that simmered through the encampment had not been banished, but merely changed its form. He did not remember anything yet, but it would come, and he anticipated it with a smile that lingered as he passed Glorfindel's mansion, whose rising walls shone creamy-white. He had joined in the work himself, although he intended to construct a _talan_ on the fringes of the forest, a place where he could be surrounded by the ancient life-song of the trees. He was of the woods, and everywhere he looked he saw stone rising, heard the rhythmic harmonies the _Golodhrim_ sang as they worked, the music flowing into their labor, making it look as easy and fluid as walking. There was power in it, but it was not one familiar to Legolas.  
Perhaps this was what had prompted his offer to ride to Daeron, Eluréd and Elurín alone. He had been several times since the winter, but always with Glorfindel, and usually with Huan loping beside them. The twins were fascinating, eternally damaged, and while Legolas could never condone what they had done to Celegorm, he could not either, wink at the Fëanorions' attack of Doriath, making his interaction with them somewhat awkward. It had been long before his own birth, and far from Eryn Lasgalen, but Oropher and Thranduil were Iathrim and the memories of their fallen home had been etched deep into their souls by sorrow. Legolas ached at the plundered violence he saw in Eluréd and Elurín. They were deadly, unstable, oddly childlike; It was easy to see why Daeron had bound himself to them.

Fëanor had decreed that none would enter the enclave of the Iathrim unless invited by them, because it was an open secret that certain of the Fëanorions, including members of Celegorm and Curufin's own households, would never forgive Eluréd and Elurín the rape. Legolas did not think Fëanor did either, but he loved his sons, and Celegorm declared there would be no vengeance. Fëanor honored his wishes, because he had survived, but who could tell what thoughts moved behind those strange eyes? Well, Glorfindel of course.

And that was where Legolas' deliberately repressed thoughts turned and showed their teeth in a wolf-snarl. It was foolish to be jealous of Glorfindel's previous lovers, but natural enough when those lovers were here, and one was Fëanor. Sometimes the eyes of uncle and nephew shared memories, and Fëanor regarded Legolas not with mockery, but with a warmth that was a little _too_ warm for comfort. Even Ecthelion, whose relationship with Glorfindel had spanned both Valinor and Middle-earth, did not disturb Legolas as Fëanor did. Perhaps he made the effort not to, and there was something else there, for Ecthelion did not act like a man robbed of his lover. Fëanor seemed neither surprised nor jealous, but Legolas could not be at ease in his company, nor when Glorfindel spent time with his uncle in his role of Vala and councilor. Legolas had no intention of trailing after his lover, laying his claim.

 _“There are no unresolved issues between Fëanor and I,”_ Glorfindel had told him in Mithlond, and Legolas trusted him. With Glorfindel as his tutor he learned eagerly, with joy and not a little surprise, what pleased him in lovemaking. As his home darkened, the Wood of Green Leaves becoming Mirkwood, and the Elves fought to keep light and beauty from being smothered, Legolas' sexual needs grew more complex, wilder. Glorfindel understood that, took away his responsibilities, and drew him further into the esoteric delights he knew so well. Perhaps, Legolas thought later, he should have asked himself if Glorfindel also felt this need to be controlled, helpless for a time, but Glorfindel was what he was: a Elf-lord of legend whom had already died and been reborn. Yes, Legolas wanted to take _him,_ but he believed their roles were reciprocal, that both gave what the other needed. And too, there was the simple matter of time, of exploring their relationship to the full; there had been weeks when they were together in Imladris, for Thranduil, although unhappy with the relationship, did not place obstacles in its path, but the years when they were apart were far longer. It could not be otherwise, the Hithaeglir lay between them, sometimes well-nigh impassible; Glorfindel was captain of the Imladrian army, and Legolas a warrior-prince. With the ending of the War of the Ring had come the freedom to live together, but not in the way Legolas had envisaged. Glorfindel had become a Power, the _Golodhrim_ had returned to Middle-earth.

Perhaps that was why Legolas had suggested visiting Daeron and the twins alone. He would have leisure, during the ride there and back, to consider all that had happened since the ending of the War of the Ring.

He did not light a fire when he camped that night, and lay back naked, bathed by starlight and air, weapons close at hand. There was no danger from the fell-wolves, Glorfindel had said, not within the borders of New Cuiviénen, but Legolas bore arms from long habit. Later, a pale shape streaked out of the hazy dark, and curled up beside him. It was not unexpected. Huan often visited the twins.

He slept and dreamed of sex. There were furs under him, he was throbbing wonderfully after hard, _hard_ use. It was almost dark; the air smelled of night air, of sex, of wine. Almost dark, but not quite. As he turned his hair, he saw the coiling gleam of Glorfindel's hair, his body moving furiously into another's. He heard the moans pitching upward into cries...  
A discontinuity as of dreamless sleep, then languid warmth, and Glorfindel's voice.  
 _“I do not command Legolas, but I will not share him.”_

 _“What if it were his choice?” Fëanor._

 _“I do not own him, but some people are not made for these games.”_

Legolas jerked awake. The stars burned into his eyes like hoarfrost.

 _Glorfindel._

 _Yes._

Legolas came to his feet. Huan lifted his great head and then paced over, nudging his hip.

 _What happened?_ The question was superfluous. Legolas knew.  
 _You chained me. And you had the gall to think you **knew what I wanted.**_  
Huan whined and Legolas' fingers delved into the thick ruff.

 _Do I not know? Should I have looked?_ Thunder growled in the distant mountains.

 _Yes. Ah, yes, you should have._  
He would not ask _how could you do it?_ for he knew well enough, but he was incensed that he had been penned as a man might pen a prize heifer. If he had considered it prior to Nost-na-Lothion, it would not even have occurred to him that Glorfindel would misuse his powers in such a way, for it _was_ a misuse, and Glorfindel realized it at least, but that was not enough. The Silvans had celebrated thus since their awakening; such times were wild and glorious, preludes to betrothals and lifelong bonds, and of course, children. There was no wrong in it, for it was natural to their kindred. Legolas had forgotten that the _Golodhrim_ had not enjoyed such feral life-celebrations since the unbegotten walked beside the first Cuiviénen, and Glorfindel had forgotten who and what Legolas was.

The silence was like a tunnel of fire between them, then Glorfindel said, _I should have made thee forget._

 _Do not make bad worse ! You took away my liberty, and you hated the Valar for doing such a thing to **you.** Now you would also take away my memories?_ Legolas laughed furiously, and the sound was shocking in the still night.  
And it brought Glorfindel like the golden storm of the sun's birth. There were no words. They did not kiss, their bodies clashed and grappled like wrestlers, and they fell to the dew-slick grass in a battling tangle.  
Images flashed like sheet lightning through Legolas' mind: a great bed of green and gold, a wild bonfire under a wind-torn sky, laughing, jewel-eyes, cries of striving and pain-pleasure, melded bodies, tossing hair.

There was no tenderness in the brutal coupling and yet, as always, there was pleasure. Legolas almost wished there was not. At least the anger had not been doused, still burning like a live coal in his stomach. It allowed him to rise with as much dignity he could muster after such shattering sex, and gather his clothes. He felt a touch on his hair, and whirled, looking into those ice-blue eyes with the fire behind them.  
“Whom wouldst thou have been with, had I allowed thee freedom?” Glorfindel hissed.

“Allow me freedom at _Tarnin Austa_ and you will find out !” Legolas snapped back.

The air concussed, and Glorfindel was gone. A storm shattered white on the peaks of the Orocarni.

Carefully, Legolas walked to the shore and sank into the water. After, he returned to his bivouac, and lay back in stone-hard silence. Huan curled beside him, and a long time later, he slept again. There were no more memories, only dreams of a sunlit room in Imladris.

~~~

“Thou art mad.”

“Very likely ! But I owe him this.” Glorfindel closed his eyes and pushed his hands into disheveled hair.

“Thou needst not have sent him so far.”

Glorfindel snarled into golden danger. “Thou art half the problem, or perhaps all of it.”

Fëanor laughed, then sobered quickly and set his hands on Glorfindel's shoulders.  
“I do not think Legolas wants me.” He was amused. “I am not _entirely_ arrogant.”

“And I said I did not own him.” Glorfindel mercilessly poured the cupful of guilt and readied himself to drink the sourness. “Yet I put chains on him as a slave-master would, and took away his choices. I hated the Valar for their inhuman laws. How many times have I promised myself I would never act as they did?” His tone went bitter and mocking. “I saw Legolas as something that belonged to me, as they saw us. What didst thou say? _Eru would not choose a coward or a hypocrite as his Vala of the Elves._ Would he not?”

Fëanor arched his brows. “Yes, very well. I did see the similarities. But surely thou hast thought of this before? Legolas' kin were not cramped as we Noldor were.”

Glorfindel flung up a hand. “I _did not ask !_ This matter never surfaced before. I have never needed to be _jealous_ before.”

“Or thought thou hadst no reason to be jealous. Oh dear, how very alike we are, nephew.” Fëanor was being deliberately provocative. “And who would have dared touch Legolas in Imladris? Did Tindómion not even try? I am rather disappointed in him.”

“Do not, uncle,” Glorfindel warned, and stared north along the dark shore. “I spoke to Vanimórë.”

“And what did he say?”

“He would have allowed Elgalad freedom. He is not so selfish as I, and he has been a slave too long. He would have hated it, but he would have looked away, had it been Elgalad's choice.” He looked around into Fëanor's eyes, brilliant, speculative, and strangely tender. “He said it was a difference in cultures.”

“He is right.” Gently.

“And I am Vala of all the Elves, not the Noldor alone.”

“I want freedom for my people. I have always wanted that,” Fëanor said. “I do not say freedom will be easy for all of us. Whether thou didst know it or not, thy second life was lived in a cell built of the Valars laws. Yes, Legolas is thine, and thou art his, but hadst thou lived without knowing the penalty for breaking those laws, might not there have been other lovers?”

Glorfindel felt heat burn along his cheeks. He said, caustically, “Legolas is not of our kindred true, and true, his own people were never curbed. He is _wild_ as the autumn winds that sweep across his forest, pure as meltwater, as generous as spring. No he is not _Golodh,_ but when I was with him I even forgot _thee._ He was what I needed, body and soul. He still is. And _I do not want to share him._ ”

“I am hurt.” Fëanor's eyes laughed. “But I do not blame thee. Few of us had the fortune to openly love, to rejoice in that love. But, as thou hast said, Legolas is _not Golodhrim,_ and deep within, thou didst know that to him, _Nost-na-Lothion_ might be quite natural, and thus took steps to ensure he lay only with thee.”

“It truly does not trouble thee, does it?” Glorfindel said wonderingly. “to see one thou lovest in the arms of another?”

Fëanor shrugged. “Jealousy is a spice. In the right amounts it adds flavor to a dish. But I _know_ those who love me, love _me,_ as thou shouldst. I think _Nost-na-Lothion_ has proved to us that sex is glorious and healing, and lust is natural. If it needed proving. Legolas doubtless knew that.”

“Thou art correct. I was arrogant and hypocritical.”

“It also might have been less hypocritical hadst thou been only with him.” Fëanor drew him into a strong embrace. “Now, listen. Thy road was a dark and lonely one and Legolas was the warmth and light that lit the path. When the journey was done, thou didst take that light and place it in a casket, as I placed the Silmarilli. Now thou art sending him out to his own kin, knowing what will happen. Well, it will hurt, but if thou art determined on it, I will not have thee stalking the encampment in a rage. Thou art too dangerous. When Legolas returns, ensure that thy reunion is _magnificent._ ”

“Bloody hells, uncle, if this was happening to thee, thou wouldst be riding after Legolas now !”

“Yes,” Fëanor admitted. “I would. I cannot resist an orgy.”

Glorfindel stared at him and almost laughed. There was pain in the sound.  
“I believe it. I have much to learn.”

“We all have much to learn.” Fëanor kissed his brow, and just for a moment, Glorfindel allowed himself to relax into the great strength of him, the love at the heart of the flame.

~~~

When Legolas woke in the mild dawn, he saw without alarm that Huan was gone, but Daeron was sitting close by, having come so silently that he had not disturbed even the dew. He smiled as he poured two cups of cyser.

“Thank you,” Legolas said, accepting one of them. “Did Glorfindel tell you I was coming?”

“The twins felt it. But yes, Glorfindel told me.”

“I see. And you were there. Who was Glorfindel with? I cannot see that.”

“I can tell thee nothing,” Daeron said.

“Cannot, or will not?”

“Cannot. And no, I was not with Glorfindel.”

Legolas knelt as Daeron combed his hair and bound it back.  
“It is no different for me. I remember only what I see, and on such nights, we see those we were with. There is little room for anything else.” He knotted the braid deftly. “Thou shouldst return. To join with another for revenge will bring thee no joy.”

Legolas reached for his breeches. “It is not my intention to do any such thing.”

“Is it not?” Daeron asked, then: “They have power, the twins.”

“I have felt it.”

“A word from some-one who was once deemed wise: They have no boundaries.”

“No boundaries,” Legolas repeated, with a humorless smile. “Then they are not so different to Fëanor in that respect, and I saw no boundaries that night save those placed about me.”

“Fëanor knows there are boundaries.” Daeron's expression was inward, troubled. “He thinks that they do not apply to him. Eluréd and Elurín do not see any; they have no concept of them.” He took Legolas' hands in a tense grip. “Thou art of the blood of Doriath, of Beleg my friend, and he has a mighty heart and great soul. To the children, thou art a breeze that brings them the scent of home. They would cleave to thee as they cleave to me.”

 _The children,_ Legolas thought. Compassion welled within him, and jealousy foundered within it. Daeron after a moment, bent his head.  
“Yes, I thought so. I see it in thine eyes. When one pities another, they wish to cause them no more hurt. They know very well how to use pity, Legolas. And they use it ruthlessly.”

“They do merit pity.”

“Yes.” The sun, clearing the eastern mountains, sparkled on the silver threads in Daeron's hair. It had looked black in the pre-dawn world.  
“They wanted Celegorm to kill them. I think they still seek destruction.”

A hard knot closed Legolas' throat.

“They were as at peace in Dor Calen as they have ever been, and then _they_ came.” _They,_ not _you,_ Legolas noted, as Daeron regarded him with those deep green eyes. “I cannot save them if they bring down the wrath of a Power upon them.”

“They will not,” Legolas promised him.  
And he realized as he said it, that he believed it, that Glorfindel had planned this, had lifted the veils over his memory last night, and was giving him freedom to do what he wanted with people he would not harm. The thought sluiced fresh anger through him. He had been given no choice, and now was being pushed into one.

“Let us go,” he said.

~~~


	11. ~ Where The Wild Blood Flows ~ Part II ~ Children of the Earth ~

  
The Iathrim enclave within New Cuiviénen was twelve leagues north of the Noldorin encampment, where a range of wooded hills tumbled to the shoreline like a shaggy beast kneeling to drink. The half-built lodge was silent. Legolas knew that those who worked there had returned to their own people for Nost-na-Lothion. Daeron showed him through the rooms; it would be a beautiful place when it was finished he thought, long and low, and not wholly _Golodhrim_ in style; other hands had been at work here. He ran his fingers up a pillar where carved ground ivy clambered upward. The tools had been neatly laid on a work-bench nearby. He looked inquiringly at Daeron.

“Yes,” he said “They carry Doriath with them.”

“Perhaps my mistake was not to carry the Greenwood with me.”

“Thou canst never be apart from it. It is here.” Daeron touched his hand to Legolas breast.

“Then I needed to remember it. To remember I am Legolas Thranduilion.”

“I wondered,” Daeron said. “When I saw thee together, and when we decided to come to _Nost-na-Lothion,_ what Glorfindel would do. Thou art bonded.”

“Of course we are.” Fire-furious though Legolas was, there was no room for denial in him, and he would not perjure himself with a lie. “And you know that it does not matter, not on those nights.”

“And yet, thou art jealous.”

He flinched at that, and the glimpse of Glorfindel with – whom? He knew why such things happened, but had he not had the leisure to observe it, he might never have known, enwrapped in his own wild lovemaking.  
“Yes. He did not impose restraints on himself. I had forgotten what I am.”

“Never.” Daeron kissed his cheek. “Thou art of the Wildwood, Legolas.” He gestured north to where the ancient forest shirred the knees of the Orocarni. “Thou art home.”

~~~

The pavilion was set a half-league away. Huge and richly appointed, the floor was spread with furs, and two inner chambers held wide beds. Legolas had carved them and the long bench and table from the wood of a huge pine, sleepily giving up its ancient existence on the edge of the forest. There was a springhouse, a cooking area and kiln close by, all showing care and permanency in their construction. There seemed no doubt the twins meant to remain here.

Eluréd and Elurín arrived not long after with a catch of fresh fish. They looked like youthful Elves, excited at the arrival of an unexpected friend, and bent on generous hospitality. Both of them came to him and embraced him, blue eyes very bright and glittering, then went to prepare the fish. Daeron looked after them with a faint frown, then said to Legolas, “Come.”

They ate outside around a fire built more for comfort than need, the twins serving both Legolas and Daeron, and pouring a light sparkling wine into silver goblets. Huan came and lay himself out on the grass as the evening sky deepened into rose and purple.

“I would like to see thy home again,” Eluréd said, after Legolas had spoken of Eryn Lasgalen, and the cleansing of the darkness there. The twins had sojourned among the Silvan Elves of the forest before Oropher came. If they had stayed, Legolas mused, he might have known them long ago.

“I do not know if I will ever see it again myself.” Legolas watched the flames, and thought of deep glades, and drifts of bronze beech leaves and small and secret pools. It was a pity his father had been so adamant in refusing Glorfindel or any _Golodh_ entrance to his realm. It would have made certain things very clear to his beautiful, arrogant lover.

_But then, I could have enlightened him, and did not. It did not matter. Or did I not tell him because I thought he would not accept it?_ he wondered. _Does one have to live thus to understand it?_

“There was a pool, not far from Menegroth,” Elurín murmured, reaching out to take his brother's hand reflexively, as Legolas' eyes flashed to his. “Liquid green under the trees.”

Daeron began to pluck at the strings of his lap-harp.

“It was like the tears of leaves,” Elurín intoned.

“Nightingales sang round it, and _niphredil_ bloomed on its banks.”

“There were pebbles like polished jewels at the bottom.”

They were speaking in cadences now, one to the other, as if reciting an old lay which, Legolas realized, they were. The harp notes wove through their words like a stream of autumn-gold sunlight.

“No snow ever lay there.”

“And the days were like honey, pouring one into the other.”

“Until the winter came.”

Their heads turned. They gazed at one another.

“An east wind, and the leaves all scattered in the water.”

“Black as the eye of a dead crow.”

“It had died, and the wind spoke of cold, and red shadows.”

And Legolas saw it as they spoke: two children standing beside a pool gone cold and dark, like something in a long-neglected garden. Their hair streamed like blown ice about them, a gale roared over their heads, tumbling the dead leaves, bringing war in its wake.

Their hands clasped, and there was a sound of thunder. They turned and looked at him beseechingly.

~~~

“Didst thou want this?” Finrod asked his brother, and Glorfindel laughed wildly, wrenching away.  
“The price of power,” he said through his teeth. “To err and be able to rectify that error. And bear the cost it demands.”

“Glorfindel?” a voice called imperatively from the entrance chamber.

“Oh, Hells,” Glorfindel groaned savagely. “Not now.”

Finrod whirled and strode out.

“No,” he said, his hand slicing through the air before the arrival. “Whatever it is, it must wait.”

Celegorm actually took a step back, his expression startled.  
“I wanted to – ”

“It can _wait._ ” Finrod told him.

“It damned well _cannot._ Huan has told me of Legolas.”

“My brother knows what is happening!” _Huan?_ he wondered. _Why?_

“And what will he do?” Celegorm lowered his voice. “Allow it to happen and then kill them?”

“He is not _you_ ” Finrod said, deliberately unfair, and watched the color flame over his cousin's cheeks.

“He _has_ to go to Legolas, _now_! Dost thou even know what happened that night?”

Now it was for Finrod to feel the heat in his face, but he kept his voice as calm as possible.  
“I have not remembered yet.” It was not entirely true, but he would not fall prey to that look in the pearl-black eyes, or seem to be affected by the skeptical expression those words evoked. “Glorfindel told me of Legolas. That is why I am here.”

“What is he trying to prove by this? Or is it that he would balk at killing one of his own kin, but _they_ – ”

Finrod hit him with a straight left, and followed it up with: “The opposite, if anything!”

Celegorm moved his jaw experimentally and grabbed two fistfuls of Finrod's shirt, dragging him close.  
“How can he know _what_ he will do? He has never faced this before, and he is human! A human with Valarin powers!”

“Peace.” Dana swept smoothly through the tent-flaps, Fëanor at her side. “Glorfindel would not harm my children. The both of thee know it.”

“Lady?” Finrod pulled back against Celegorm's suddenly lax grip. “Yes, of course I know it. This fool – ”

“Cares for Eluréd and Elurín,” Fëanor said. “But Finrod is right,” he told his son. “Glorfindel would not harm them.”

“Children?” Celegorm questioned.

Dana walked through into the inner chamber, and Finrod, straightening his shirt, threw a hard look at Celegorm and followed her. Glorfindel's face was savage and beautiful as the Mother took it between her hands. The flesh at the hollow of his throat was wet, his breathing harsh.

She said, calm as a full moon, “Love is not about ownership, but of sharing; sharing and accepting a thousand differences day after day, knowing that love surmounts those differences, and makes room in the heart for them. Love survives anger, jealousy and long partings. It is stronger than death. But thou knowest this.”

“I know it.” Glorfindel's voice held a deep growl as of thunder.

“Need is born of fear, desire of excitement. Thou didst fear what _Nost-na-Lothion_ might take from thee. And Legolas hurts as much as thee.”

“I know.”

“Thou couldst have opened his memories here, and spoken to him,” she continued. “But thou art generous, and fair-minded. Knowing what would happen, thou hast sent him away.”

Finrod moved closer to his brother, laid a hand on his tense back. Heat was pouring from Glorfindel's skin.

“The Elves who never crossed to Aman have ever been _my_ children,” Dana said, with a ring of implacability. “The Earth days they celebrate are sacred to _me_. There is no wrong in them, though the Valar would have thee believe there is: one mate, one bonding, and only for a while, only to beget children. Ah, they ground it deep into all of thee, did they not? My rites celebrate _life._ Freedom. _Sex._ ” She smiled, darkly brilliant, relishing the word. “The sharing of pleasure and one another's bodies. I take whom I will, but I do not imprison them within my arms. Vanimórë has said it: Desire is not love, but it _is_ natural, and the heritage of all Elves.” Her slender fingers combed through Glorfindel's tossed hair tenderly. “The People of the Stars, thou art called. And thou knowest what the stars are, what they are made of. Only from a distance do they appear cold.” She laughed. “All that power must be allowed to burn. Legolas will love thee and thou him whatsoever comes to pass.” She kissed his brows, his cheeks, and his mouth. “But because, as Celegorm said, thou art a man, and of the Finwii, I have come to ensure that thou wilt not succumb to emotion, and show thee a thing thou hast not yet seen. I never carried Eluréd and Elurín under my heart, nor did I birth them. Nevertheless they _are_ my children. Thou knowest not what they are, nor whence their power truly devolves. Not from Lúthien, but from me.”

Fëanor stood in the doorway of the chamber, curious and gleaming. He put out a hand to arrest Celegorm, and Dana turned to him.  
“All of thee should see,” she said. “Nothing could have saved thee, Celegorm Fëanorion, hadst thou harmed them. As it is, thou hast my thanks.” With a gesture of one hand, she opened the past.

~~~

Legolas found himself running, feeling the cold lash of the wind in his face.  
“Eluréd, Elurín! Come!”

They started, turned, and bolted like white deer. He followed them, cursing, hearing a clash of swords, cries.

Pillars lifted themselves before him, arching toward massive gates, both a hill and a hall. The shallow white steps ran slick with blood. He leaped them, passing battling figures who did not seem to notice him, and they themselves had an intangible quality. Men told tales of ghosts who enacted wars they fought when alive over and over, and Legolas thought of the wraiths in the Paths of the dead above Dunharrow.

_This is not real,_

A warrior whirled into his path, the sway of his thick rope of black hair passing through Legolas' body without sensation. The eyes under the red-spattered helm were silver, filled with death and anguish.

He heard himself shout: “Maglor!”  
But Maglor could not see him, because Legolas was not truly here. He was in a vision woven by Eluréd and Elurín.

  
The Fëanorion's blade swept a shining arc, and a head bounced soundlessly across the floor. It rolled close to his feet, and Legolas saw it was a woman, mouth parted in her last scream of anger or fear. There was a circlet of royalty about her brow. Nimloth?

He was in the midst of the sack of Doriath and impotent, just as Eluréd and Elurín had been impotent. He recognized the creamy plait of Celegorm, dark Caranthir and Curufin, Maedhros, taller than all his brothers. For a heart-clenching moment, Legolas was caught motionless with horror, and a sensation of past and present colliding. He had seen and spoken to all the Fëanorions, these men who were fighting and slaughtering his father's kin.  
And a distant part of him wondered if that was what the twins intended...

The children were still ahead of him, fleeing deeper into the lamp-lit passages. Images of aching beauty passed Legolas in a blur: tapestries sewn in jewel-colors with figures that seemed to move with the charnel-wind that blew through Menegroth. Fountains wept into leaf-shaped pools. There was a forest underground, pillars like beeches of stone, a floor of grass-green tiles studded with white and yellow.

“Eluréd, Elurín!”

They turned, stretching out their arms. A last burning lamp caught the tears on their cheeks, before the tinted glass shattered. There was darkness. Screaming.

A break in the black world.

Fallen leaves whispered under his bare feet. A night forest, with thin snow settling on his skin, thin voices wailing.

“Legolas!”

“Legolas!”

The trees whipped by him, their mighty hearts weeping with loss.

They were dead when he found them, skeletally thin, white skin stretched taunt over bone, they huddled together, the drifting leaves half-covering them. 

_No._ He swept the leaves aside. _No!_  
 _This is not real..._  
But it felt real, real enough for the tears on his cheeks to be icy in that pitiless wind.

_And that is part of their power...to make me weep._

And the wind died. A light began to glow deep in the woods. It was a woman walking bare-armed, thin-gowned in deep winter. And she saw Legolas. Of course, she did.   
_Dana._  
She knelt opposite him, surveyed the children for a moment, then tore at the neck of her gown, drawing them up to her heavy breasts. Their throats moved, they swallowed, suckling and their flesh warmed and filled out, life sparked in their eyes. Dana rocked them, and they held her as the wind loosed its cold breath again, and scattered their hair around her, white over ebony.  
After a long time, she laid them back down and looked at Legolas calmly, deeply, as if from the center of the world. She kissed him across their small forms, before turning away. The forest was dark after she had gone, the children, in their nest of leaves, seemed asleep. Snow began to fall thicker, more purposefully. Winters' white tears for the sack of Doriath.

Soft, indulgent laughter sounded from behind him.  
Legolas came to his feet and turned. They were no longer children, no longer even human, but beautiful and wild in their nakedness.  
 _We were dying,_ they said. _Almost gone, And then she came. We are Dana's children. Children of the Earth._  
Smiling, they beckoned him, and he walked toward them. They were warm, living, supple, as they wound their legs about him and drew him down. The winter sank into the earth. It was hot now, their hands brought the sweat pricking out on his skin. He shuddered out of dream, as a voice said sternly, strained to one musical note of pain: “That is enough. Not him.”

“Daeron!” A hiss, a hard slap, and a breathed: “Ah!” of satisfaction.

Legolas stirred and raised himself. The fire was all red embers, and by its light, he saw Daeron shake Elurín by the shoulders. His head lolled like a cloth moppet, eyes closed, mouth smiling faintly. Eluréd had one hand pressed to his cheek.

“Please,” Elurín whispered, and his fingers thrust suddenly into Daeron's hair. “Please !” His throat arched white and inviting. “I _need._ ”

Legolas heard Daeron groan, before Elurín straightened, struck at him with a kiss, pulling him down.

Eluréd turned to Legolas, stalking him on hands and knees, as his brother whimpered. Flesh hammered into flesh.

“ _I need,_ ” Eluréd echoed his brother.

Hard as a clenched fist, Legolas shook his head. “I...”

“Help me.” Metal flashed in the firelight; a slender line of darkness opened on Eluréd's chest. He held Legolas' eyes, unblinking and crossed it with another.

“Stop!” Legolas flung himself forward, clamping the wrist that held the knife and twisting until it thudded into the turf. He sent it spinning into the shadows.  
Eluréd exhaled a soft gasping laugh.  
“That hurt.” He rose, padded toward the fire.

Legolas' whole body hit him before he could step into it, and they rolled over and over, coming to rest with Eluréd underneath. Now he was crying soundlessly. He dragged Legolas' head down, who tasted blood, lapped at it, then drank the tears.

“Now!” Eluréd writhed against him, and his face showed stark, agonized. “ _Now!_ ”

Elurín screamed, and his brother echoed it, wrapping his fingers around his own swollen shaft and working himself ruthlessly as Legolas entered him.  
 _Oh !_  
Eluréd burned inside, a tight fire-hot grip that engorged Legolas further each time he thrust. He watched as the face, lit like sheet lightning with inexpressible hunger, tossed back and forth on the spill of silver-white hair. “No,” Eluréd sobbed, and, “Yes!” and at the end he was cursing and pleading, before the racking, thunder of an orgasm drained Legolas to his bones.

~~~

He woke in a tangle of warm limbs, arms and legs enclosing him in a comprehensive embrace. There was no lag in his memory this time, and he was astonished to realize that what he felt most was sorrow. Gently, he removed himself from the twins, who did not wake, but drew together into the space he left, and Daeron moved in his sleep to cast an arm over both of them. Legolas stared at the marks on Eluréd's chest already faded into fine pink lines.

A mist had come down before dawn, and all was still as a held breath. Legolas looked down at himself, the bruises dappled on his thighs, the dried white of seed, and moved toward the scent and sound of running water. Glorfindel was there, on the borders of his mind, pacing like a tethered lion, and the silence between them was full of jagged edges. _I thought he would intervene._

_Did I?_

_I was not thinking at all._

When a shape walked out of the mist, Legolas stopped dead, tensing reflexively.  
The man was naked, and paced the wet grass lithe and powerful as an animal. His hair was white, thick and soft, his eyes, even in that dim light, were a clean fierce blue.

“Legolas,” Huan said. “Didst thou think Glorfindel sent me?”

It was all there, the beauty and wild power that made Huan the quintessence of a warhound, but now in human shape.

“You came for them.” Legolas heard the revelation in his tone.

“I care for them. I could not have fought Glorfindel and won, but Dana went to him. He knows now what they are.” His eyes flicked up over Legolas' shoulder, and he said, “Daeron.”

There was white strain on Daeron's face, and Legolas saw Ages of dark and helpless love embedded so deep it might have formed the suave bones.

“Talk to him,” Huan advised, and walked past them to where the twins lay.

“Come with me, Legolas.” Daeron lead him to the stream that plashed down through the hills to the inland sea. There was a pool, spear shaped, deep and cool.

_There was a pool, not far from Menegroth..._

“They read minds,” Legolas whispered, as the water lapped around his heated loins. “Did you see what I saw?”

“Yes.” Legolas looked into Daeron's eyes; so sad they were. _The tears of leaves..._

“Why?” He shook his head. “I mean, so many died in Doriath, children too. Why did Dana save only Eluréd and Elurín?”

“Melian,” Daeron said. “Dana knew her before the Elves awoke, before the Valar removed to Valinor.” He let the water run through his fingers. “The Earth-rites were practiced in Doriath. The twins became Dana's children. And mine. Death-seekers, pain-lovers. My wild ones.” His voice was so filled with agony that Legolas reached out, swallowing a complex pain.  
“Huan said Dana went to him.”

“Yes, she must have. I feared for them.” There was a strange expression in his eyes. “Legolas, thou shouldst go. Now. They would keep thee here, draw thee into their web as they did me. I cannot escape them; I do not even want to. I told thee, they have no boundaries.”

“No one ensnares me, Daeron,” Legolas said firmly.

“They already have. They _need._ They need all the time, pain and sex, care and love. I give them what I can, but thou art Sinda, and beautiful, and can take as well as give. I feel it too. And thou didst certainly,” Daeron's voice twisted into dryness, even as the back of his hand drifted gently down Legolas' cheek. “Give Eluréd what he wanted.”

There was no answer to that, no answer but Eluréd's devouring need that had found an echoing vein in Legolas body. It still thrummed there, heating at Daeron's touch.

The twins entered the water silently. Warm arms came around Legolas, and he felt teeth bite into his shoulder. A flash of fire ran down his spine. He turned.

“Come and take some wine,” Elurín said. His smile was sweet, beguiling. “We would be poor hosts to let thee go without food and drink. Come.”

They drew Legolas and Daeron from the pool, leading him to their tent. Inside, it was warm, and scented and dim when Huan let the flaps fall.

_This is thy choice, Legolas,_ and Eluréd murmured, as a counterpoint: “Do not go yet.”

_Children of the Earth..._

Legolas felt his loins stir as kisses dashed over his bare skin, and he did not know if it were two of them or three, or all four.

~~~

“That _is_ enough!” Glorfindel flung himself against Dana's rock-like presence. He felt Finrod and Fëanor holding him, and his mind bloomed fire.

_Wait!_ Vanimórë's voice came down across his wrath like a steel bar. _Thou knowest what they want, Glorfindel. What they need. I will go to them._

Dana nodded slowly.  
“Yes,” she said. “Perhaps thou shouldst. I trust thee.”

In Imladris, Vanimórë looked silently at Coldagnir for a moment.  
Who said: “Let me come with thee.”

~~~


	12. ~ Whips of Memory ~

  
~ He had been drowning in sensation when some-one neatly extricated him from the touches that delved downward into the trackless places, the primal core that was sex, without shame or thought. He felt his feet touch grass, arms encircling his waist, stared up into violet eyes, and still craving, arched toward the one who held him.

“Legolas,” Vanimórë said, and shook his head. His black brows had drawn into a frown.

“You?” Legolas was conscious of surprise, dislocation, and turned, still within the ambit of Vanimórë's arms, back toward the tent. The others had followed, and were watching, startled, dazed. There was a moment filled only with quick roused breathing.

_Legolas, be very careful._

And Vanimórë too was aroused, Legolas realized.

_Yes. Excuse me, I really cannot help it._ The tone was ironic, strained and not in the least apologetic. _But be careful._

There was rage in the twins eyes, Vanimórë saw, and something deeper, disappointment, loss. Madness. They truly rode the edge of death very hard.  
Very hard indeed, because after a moment, they sprang toward him. He had only a heartbeat to whirl and push Legolas away – who vanished behind a barrier of fiery wings. They would not hurt, they were illusion, but would serve for the moment that he needed.

Hissing like an angry cat, Eluréd landed on his back. Vanimórë's flipped him in a wrestler's move and slammed his hands over his head. From behind him, he heard Daeron saying something, perhaps restraining Elurín.

“Thou knowest he is not thine to keep,” he said into the blue wildness of Eluréd's eyes.

“His choice,” Eluréd smiled panting, and not from exertion.

“There is too much danger in this, and to no good end.” He came to his feet, and turned to Legolas. Huan paced before Coldagnir like a hound, Maia watching Maia, but without wariness or alarm, and after a moment, the wings lifted, and Legolas stepped forth. He looked as if he were emerging from a wild dream, as in a way, he was. Vanimórë knew that he felt Glorfindel's scarce-reined fury, saw comprehension spark in his eyes.

“They must not be hurt,” he said instantly. “This _was_ my choice.”

“They will not be hurt.” But he left a suggestion hanging there, and Legolas took a deep breath, nodded. _Dana's children._ She would not let them be harmed, but no-one could foresee what might happen if Glorfindel's temper snapped. He was a god with the passions of a man. Dana was the essence of the Earth itself. Legolas looked back. There was no shame in his expression, only sadness, and the still potent desire.

“ _No !_ ” Elurín cried. It was almost a command, and Legolas winced. He knew what the twins had done, but he also knew it was not all calculation.

“If thou wouldst bind thyself to them, they will never let thee go,” Huan warned, but kindly.

“I cannot be bound to them,” Legolas said softly. “And yet, they _are_ of my blood. Glorfindel must know me and what I am as well as I know him, and what he is.”

Vanimórë watched him; frost-blue eyes clouded with sex, pale hair in disorder. It was true. Glorfindel had become Legolas' lover without considering his Silvan blood. Probably he had been more aware of the political implications and the Valarin Laws. Young when they met, Legolas had done all he could to understand Glorfindel the reborn Elda, loving him, as he still did, as he always would. Now Glorfindel must learn to understand what Legolas was, what _his_ heritage meant.

“It was just the two of thee for so long,” Vanimórë said. “Always in Imladris, and he living ever in fear of what would happen shouldst thou die and come before Mandos.”

“I know.” Legolas closed his eyes for a moment, and his lips went taut. “To love Glorfindel and ignore the Laws my own father thought absurd was my choice, as _Nost-na-Lothion_ should have been my choice. But I did not come here for revenge, not truly.” His long lashes lifted. Vanimórë imagined Elgalad thus, ripe for sex, his diffidence shed like a snakeskin leaving raw desire. It would take only a touch. He envied Glorfindel fiercely.

“What will you do?” Legolas asked.

“I am not here to punish them, but to send thee back before Glorfindel comes here.”

“But they want that,” Legolas murmured. “Punishment.”

“I know. But do not worry, I cannot truly harm them. Dana guards them, and they are, as thou hast seen, not truly human any more.”

“Human enough.”

Their gazes locked. Vanimórë thought again of Elgalad. He had not even mentioned _Nost-na-Lothion_ in Imladris.

_I did not ask. I am no different to Glorfindel. I expect people to march in step with me._

“And you will not ask me,” Legolas stated.

Vanimórë knew his face was expressionless, but somehow the prince had read what was in his mind.  
“Not him, nor thee,” he said, and because he was starving, he kissed Legolas as he would kiss Elgalad, then quickly drew him across the leagues and left him at the door of Glorfindel's tent.

~~~

His mind and body had both become twisting white fury, whirling knives that that abraded as they spun inward. The desire to do hurt was a scream of fire in his soul. He was almost beyond controlling his rage. He could hear no-one now, nothing but the trumpet-call of wrath. He had almost forgotten about the power at his command, what it could do, and what, if he harmed Eluréd and Elurín or tried to, it would come up against...

From somewhere outside it came a slap. He was vaguely aware that it was hard, stinging.

“ _Glorfindel !_ ”

Again.

“ _Glorfindel !_ ”

He burst through the fiery walls ready to shout, to lash out with power...  
...And looked straight into Legolas eyes. Naked, erect, breathing hard through showers of gleaming hair, his eyes wild.

“You have no right to be angry !” he cried.

~~~

  
The twins cursed.

“It is enough,” Daeron told them, quietly, his voice filled with desperate sorrow for them, but their faces were unassuaged as they came forward. Vanimórë felt them try to glamor his mind – try and fail, coming up short against the god-powers that allowed him to see through woven vision.

“It will not work,” he said. “And thou wilt not find death here.”

“He is one of us,” Elurín said, and the intolerable longing in his voice went into Vanimórë like a knife.  
They were trying to find their home, broken and long-vanished, to find a lost innocence, peace. And Legolas carried Iathrim blood.

“Yes,” he said, gently. “I know. And still he is not thine, unless he would be of his own choice. But thou knowest he loves Glorfindel. Who loves him, and needs him, who has suffered himself down the long years, who died in agony long ago. I know what thou needest, but to keep Legolas here thou wouldst have to spin thy webs about him forever. That is imprisonment, not love, and at least as wrong as the bonds Glorfindel set on him on the night of _Nost-na-Lothion._ ”  
He glanced at Daeron's grave face. He was immensely strong that one. His heart was large enough to encompass what these two had done to him, and to embrace it. They might have ensnared him once, but now he was bound solely by love, and it was reciprocated. The twins would truly be lost without him. Vanimórë found his lust ebbing. He pitied all three. The best thing he could do here was to mold a different mood, or send them into restful sleep. Easy enough, but it would not satisfy them, and he knew also why Coldagnir had come, what he wanted. It had been an unspoken thing between them. He turned his head, stared into the scoured-bronze eyes. The fire had faded, save in them. He let himself feed on it, on memory. He would need anger here.

As he turned back, Eluréd's back-handed slap caught him across the face. It was a challenge, it was anger at his taking Legolas away. It was need.

“Sauron's son,” he spat. “What right hast thou to interfere?”

“Because I will not try to kill thee,” Vanimórë said.

“Wilt thou not?” Eluréd slapped him again, and Elurín pulled himself from Daeron and slipped into the tent. He emerged carrying a coiled whip in one hand, and with a negligent movement of his arm, he released the thongs. They cracked about Vanimórë's torso, pinning his arms.

And he permitted it. Coldagnir stared disbelievingly at Daeron, who turned his head away, and then at Huan as Elurín wrenched on the stock of the whip, pulling Vanimórë to his knees.  
He _had_ to be allowing it, Coldagnir thought, reminded of the way he had used his own whip.

_Yes,_ came the answer. _I do not truly want to give them pain. I am sorry for them. They will have to make me angry to get what they want from me._

He seemed to vanish in a swirl of frosty hair. And that was too much, for Coldagnir had seen Vanimórë endure just such treatment in Angband – and had not cared then, had been a part of it and had never objected. One did not, there. Mercy was not a thing they had been able to feel.

Vanimórë had not asked why he came. There was no need. His motives were simple; hardly difficult to divine even for one without powers.  
All that long journey through the winter rains, the green birth of spring, Coldagnir had watched Vanimórë, _wanting._ There had been the surprising knowledge he was of use as they traveled, the strange comfort Elgalad gave without words, with his acceptance. And still he wanted. He wanted to see the Vanimórë of Angband, to speak to the Vanimórë whom had once writhed under him, eyes closed over fury and pain. But this was not he. The face was unchanged, the body unaltered; the differences were all internal. There had been vulnerability in Angband, under Vanimórë's defiance, and very real fear. That was gone, burned away in the forges of slavery and pain, leaving this hard-glossed beauty that would accept no pity. It had taken the journey west for Coldagnir to see that beneath it there was a chasm of self-hate delved with such impeccable and inaccurate logic that it had mutated into stubbornness against the love he needed and wanted. That day in Imladris, when Vanimórë raged against fate and himself, had opened him to Coldagnir.

_“Still looking for punishment, Balrog?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Do not tempt me, tonight. Thou wouldst not enjoy it.”_

Perhaps not – but perhaps yes, and whether or no, he needed it. He wanted in some way to go back to those wondrous, terrible hell-lit chambers of Angband and have _that_ Vanimórë take him in pain, and thus feel that in some small way, he had paid for his acts.  
  
_And because I did want him, the dark beauty of Angband, the one who would not break. As I did._  
  
And so he had come here, and now, as he looked at the silver twins, he understood them. He knew these games, although in Angband most had liked to inflict pain rather than receive it, but there had been some who came to know the pleasure to be had in both. There was the difference of a hairsbreadth between pain and ecstasy in sex. Coldagnir had given Vanimórë only pain, and had never been pleasured, but Eluréd and Elurín gave and received both, not through hate, but twisted love.

But to watch Vanimórë treated thus called up flame. He felt it spreading outward from his core, felt himself become it; what he truly was.  
And was knocked to the ground, a pair of huge paws on his shoulders, and the warhound's teeth bared like white knives around a warning snarl deep as thunder.  
_He is in no danger,_ Huan's voice growled in his mind.

_It is not the danger !_

_It is a game, brother. Is that not what thou didst come for?_

Coldagnir drank back his power, not daring to use it. He was not here to hurt, but to be hurt. The paws were removed and Huan gripped his wrist, lifting him. With a smile deep in his eyes, he snapped the laces of Coldagnir's shirt.

“Did Sauron geld thee?” he heard Eluréd say.

~~~

They did not truly hurt him. It was in no way comparable to his punishments under Melkor or Sauron, but it was harsh enough, and they were very strong, these two. Their actions were goads, he understood that, and with them they undressed him, dragged nails over his skin, fingers through his hair, caressed and scratched and whispered. They must have heard of him through Glorfindel, and of course, when Glorfindel had passed through his apotheosis, every Elf on Arda had been made aware of what had happened. They knew who he was, and taunted him with delicate, painful blows, with words. He took himself down through the layers of his past as they rendered him naked, as the whip fell again over his buttocks. He let them do as they wished, descending further, reliving the pain, the shame, so that it might fan his hate, his lust.

“Did Sauron geld thee?” Long fingers cupped his sex.

  
~~~


	13. ~ Entanglements ~

~ “Perhaps we should geld him.”

Melkor's voice, Ages past,and far away in a fortress long buried by cataclysm, rang like a multi-toned bell through his mind.

“It might change what he is, my lord.” His father, calm, stating a fact.

“I think not. All that hate increased a thousandfold and directed wholly into war. He amuses himself too well among my vassals.”

Melkor's hand burned against the sack of his balls, and Vanimórë felt the heat radiating from the Dark God's body. The fall of his hair, by contrast was ice on his skin. His hands, chained above his head, curled into fists. He made, _willed_ himself to look up into Melkor's face, so far beyond terror that the very memory of fear seemed something familiar and desirable. He had promised himself that whatever they did to him, they would not strip him of his ability to give and take pleasure, and had proven it among the Eastern peoples. What Melkor said was absolutely true, he knew it with the core of his being. If they gelded him, his hate would become a river of destruction, burning whatever he was now to ash, and then it would turn outward onto everything, everyone he encountered. The thought made him fear himself, because he saw himself becoming precisely the tool they wanted: A monster that they unleashed at their pleasure. He was screaming inside. And both Melkor and Sauron heard him.

“He is so very male, is he not? Too much so. We wanted a warrior. A thing that hates. A thing that kills.” The hand tightened.

“If I may speak, my lord?” Sauron murmured smoothly, and what he said, mind-to-mind to Melkor, Vanimórë did not know, could not begin to guess. It seemed to last an Age, that silent conversation, with his balls still held in that burned hand, contracting with horror. He did not pray. He knew the Valar did not listen, could not even hear him in this place. He was not sure that the Creator the Elven thralls spoke of could hear him in Angband.  
Then the hold fell away, and Melkor was on him, in him, forcing the tears of sweat from him, taking his monumental pleasure, and after, when he rose, he said:  
“Perhaps thou art right. It is not a thing I can undo.”

Vanimórë saw that Sauron was watching him, lavender eyes opaque, arms folded. There was nothing in his expression that his son could read.

“It is a risk, my lord. But I am thine. Command me.”

Melkor gazed at him. Vanimórë knew he should lower his eyes from the ones that hammered into him, _through_ him, but he was afraid to make any movement at all lest his mind shatter irretrievably.

“Perhaps the balance _is_ exactly right,” Melkor mused. “Just enough sensitivity to make him truly enjoyable.” He waved a hand. “Take him away. Ungelded.” And he laughed then at whatever he saw in Vanimórë's face. “Be grateful, little slave, that I like thee this way.”

~~~

“Did Sauron geld thee?” Light, mocking.

He came to his knees. Coldagnir had seen this many times, when bruised, bleeding, naked, a younger Vanimórë would kneel, and raise his head to meet Melkor's eyes. Through his outrage shivered a fugitive thrill.

 _A game,_ Huan said again, hands at his breeches.

But never, in Angband, had Vanimórë's eyes gone as blue-black as the spaces between the stars. He came smoothly to his feet, seized handfuls of hair and jerked Eluréd and Elurín against him. Their necks arched back, their eyes closed.

“Let us see,” he said. And the thrill went deep and hot into Coldagnir's blood.

~~~

  
Vanimórë had not said where he was going save that it was to help Legolas and Glorfindel, and he would explain further when he returned. He had pressed a swift kiss on Elgalad's brow and gone with Coldagnir, which was surprising and would have been worrying, save that Vanimórë's mind-tone conveyed no sense of danger. But Elgalad was quite unable not to feel concern, and walked the familiar ways of Imladris, finally climbing to the pool where Gil-galad's grave lay, remembering how he had almost died here at Malthador's hands. Despite that, it had always been one of his favorite places in the valley, drawing him with its peace and everlasting sorrow. He had spent many hours thinking of Vanimórë here, alone, or at times with Legolas, Glorfindel, and Tindómion. It seemed only days ago – days and thousands of wheeling years, so much had happened.  
He stopped as he saw he was not alone, but the two there did not immediately notice him. The sun glanced off water-straight black hair bound into Noldorin royal braids, and from a fall as silver as his own. He locked into astonished stillness as Beleg's hands slid through that shining ebony water, as the other strained into his kiss. Ice ran through him. The sun went behind a cloud, and the pour of the small waterfall sounded deeper, colder.

He moved then, walked away before his presence could intrude, and as he ran back down the path, the chill hardened to a solid thing of pain and presentiment.

There was no reason for Beleg and Maeglin not to be lovers, no reason except the deepest, greatest reason.

~~~

  
They came apart unhurriedly.

“Who was that?” Maeglin asked.

“Elgalad,” Beleg murmured.

Maeglin had been told of the arrival of the women and those who brought them only this morning. He had been out of Imladris with a group of hunters for a few days, and only just returned. He had heard of Túrin's near-drowning, and Beleg had walked up to the pool with him as they spoke of the child needing to learn to swim – and for other reasons.

“Did he leave because he disapproves?”

“He is not of the temper to disapprove. No doubt he left out of politeness.”

They had spoken of Vanimórë, what little they knew, through the deepening nights of autumn and winter, when they shared hot mead and talked to dawn. Maeglin said nothing of Tol Morwen, only of seeing Glorfindel and Sauron's son on the islet above drowned Gondolin. Beleg told of Vanimórë's voice in his mind, suggesting that he remain in Imladris. It disturbed Maeglin that Vanimórë had come here, and with one whom had been a Balrog, but there was no fear in that thought. He had seen Balrogs in Angband, and found himself wondering if this one remembered him and his treachery.

“He is very beautiful,” Beleg said of Coldagnir. “One would not know he had been a Balrog. This, I think – and I knew Melian – is his true being.”

But both were gone for the moment, and Maeglin was not sorry. He knew exactly what Vanimórë would think, for Maeglin thought the same, and surely every-one who knew of he and Beleg would reach the same conclusions. Perhaps Elgalad too. Elgalad, Beleg's great-grandson, whom, it seemed, he was already fond of.

“He is not the kind to hate on sight,” Beleg said now. “Nor judge people by their past actions. Thou shouldst speak with him. His is a shining soul.”

“Later,” Maeglin said. “Later, I will.”

How had it happened? He had not instigated it, as he had with Glorfindel in Gondolin, and he had certainly not expected it, that night when snow came down from the mountains. He did not even realize it was snowing until he left the smithy, locking it because he did not trust Lorh, but especially because Túrin was drawn to it, or rather, he thought, the shards of Anglachel. He walked into soft, blinding white flakes, and recalled Elladan mentioning there was snow coming.

It was late, and most of the rooms he passed were dark, but some-one had fed his fire, and the floors were warm from the hypocaust. _Like Gondolin,_ he thought. He left the bathing chamber to find Beleg standing beside the fire. A steaming jug was set on the table.

“My thanks,” Maeglin said, with a surge of real gratitude for this man who, with all his own sorrows, had reached through them to him. The only one, save his mother, who had.

They drank. It was milk posset, thick and sweet, and then, without saying a word, Beleg removed his boots and rose. Maeglin sat completely dumb as the tunic and breeches came off, and heat gathered in his loins. Beleg was beautiful, like something carven of a supple white wood, and he was hugely, magnificently erect. And Maeglin, deep-seeing, clever Maeglin could think of nothing at all to say, his throat, he realized, had closed up.

Beleg's eyes were on him, dew-clear and wide. He prowled forward, straddled Maeglin's lap, his fingers slipping under the loose robe, and Maeglin did move then, did make a sound, formless and hungry.

“Why?” he asked, as Beleg moved again, and drew him to the bedroom.

“Because we both need it.”

There were no more words for a very long time. And Maeglin learned that night what lay under Beleg's deep calmness. It was the deceptive serenity of a towering thundercloud that holds a storm within its white beauty, the still assurance of a mighty tree, that given time cracks rock asunder. And he realized how Túrin, with all his bitter prideful arrogance, could have let this one into the hearthside of his soul, and loved him enough to bind himself to Middle-earth forever.

Beleg took him into a wild river, over the waterfall where everything was lost, even his own identity. Later he took Maeglin into himself, and there was nothing calm in his response, nothing calm in either of them.

It was only after, that Maeglin saw the path he was walking. Again.

“Why?” he whispered, still breathless.

Beleg lay on his stomach, head resting on folded arms, relaxed. The storm-surge had sunk back into the deeps, but never again would Maeglin see him in the same way. The snow made the room queerly bright, and he saw the lovely smile.

“Always the questions, thou _Golodhrim._ ” Then he raised himself. “To feel alive,” he said.

Out of the sated shock, Maeglin said, “Do I remind thee of Túrin?”  
He did not know where that came from, had never ventured so near Beleg's past before. It seemed an intrusion of the other's ancient, private pain.  
The silence of thought within. The silence of snow without.

“Túrin would never have lain beside me, like this,” Beleg said, deflecting. “He was not comfortable with such relationships. He loved his father, who was very much a man and a warrior. To lie under another man...he said once it took away his manhood, that it might be different for Elves, but for Men it was wrong.” Maeglin saw one wide shoulder shrug. “It was something he never came to accept in himself. In Doriath he seemed to consider it acceptable among the Elves, while making it clear such acts were not for him.”

Maeglin wanted to say, _What a damned fool,_ but he stifled the words.  
“But he loved thee.”

This time the smile was shadowy.  
“In his own way, I think he did. As a friend, and a little more, perhaps. And when I was dying, yes. There was no shame in loving me then, and nothing to face after. Perhaps it was easier for him to love one who was dead.”

 _In his own way..._ Maeglin could hardly forbear then to tell him of the anguish he had felt in Túrin's soul, of the death he had seen. All of those condemned to the Void had been shown the griefs of Middle-earth. Beleg had surely seen Túrin's ending, heard the cry of terrible love: “Oh _Beleg !_ ” And then he thought of what Glorfindel had said on their journey here, that Morgoth showed the damned only those things that would hurt, nothing that would succor or give comfort. The Void was his domain, he was free to do as he wished. Perhaps Morgoth had withheld that vision from Beleg, which would have shown him beyond any doubt that Túrin loved him, more than _a little,_ more than _a friend._ Yes, of course he had.  
He wanted to tell Beleg everything, for he deserved the truth. It seemed impossible that he had lived and died feeling that Túrin had loved him _in his own way._

And he had promised to say nothing. What in the _Hells_ was he to do now?

“But thou wert lovers?” he asked with unwonted hesitation.

“Yes. And better that we were not, for him at least, for after he would be consumed with shame. He was,” Beleg said lovingly, “so very confused. But yes. Some few times, we loved. A very few. And I cherish each one.”

~~~

  
So now, on the doorstep of summer, Maeglin sought out Elgalad, the only one, so far as he knew, who had seen he and Beleg together. The _Peredhil_ guessed, as did his mother, but Elladan and Elrohir had their own secret which was truly no secret for any-one with eyes to see. He wondered if the same thoughts that occurred to him, had crossed their minds. If so, they had said nothing, just as his mother had said nothing. Beleg was with the twins now, and the lingering twilight poured muted gold over the valley as he climbed the steps to Elgalad's guest-chambers.

Elgalad looked up as the unfamiliar voice spoke his name.

What surprised him was Maeglin's extraordinary beauty. It should not have, for he had seen Aredhel, but he had thought that one with such an infamous name should carry his deeds upon him like a mark. Yet Vanimórë's face showed nothing of his past either, only his eyes, at times. Maeglin's were a pale and glittering grey, opaque as a frozen lake, but they were not without expression, and a faint frown creased his brow. With the straightforwardness that was his mother's, he said, but very softly:  
“Thou knowest of Túrin.”

“I know,” Elgalad murmured. And then, diffidently, because it mattered, “Dost thou l-love Beleg?”

Maeglin regarded him haughtily, then perhaps something he saw unseated it. Elgalad watched the change. Maeglin had come, he thought, because he was one of the few people who knew that the child Túrin was indeed Túrin Turambar, and perhaps because he was Beleg's kinsman. The impenetrable, brilliant eyes held his for heartbeats, then Maeglin moved restlessly to the baluster and back.  
“Beleg loves thee, and I would not have thee misconstrue what thou didst see by the waterfall.” He took a breath, loosed it. “ I am accepted here because of the task I must do, and because I am Aredhel's son.” He held up two fingers. His tone was mildly sardonic, but so much lay under it and the faint tilt to the sensuous mouth. “He held out his hand to me. I am a traitor. Because of me, a city fell and thousands died. I lusted and was ambitious. That is the truth of it. And still, Beleg offered friendship without judgment.* Canst thou understand how that feels?”

Elgalad thought of his loneliness when Vanimórë left him, how eagerly he had embraced Legolas and Thranduil's affection. He nodded, and something else occurred to him. There was a familiarity here, and it lay behind Maeglin's eyes as in did behind Vanimórë's: self-hate. Elgalad could see no reason for Vanimórë's, but did not Maeglin have reason for it? He knew the story of Gondolin, from Glorfindel by way of Tindómion and Legolas, for it was not something he would ever have asked Glorfindel himself. And after the release of Túrin's soul, Vanimórë had spoken to him of Maeglin and his part in this ancient tale, of new deeds that must, in some way, trace the jagged lines and voluptuous curves of history.  
And they were.

“I b-believe I can.”

“It is not love. It is friendship, and more as these things sometimes are, I am told.”

Elgalad did not want to say it. He did not have to. Maeglin had been well-named by his father.

“I betrayed Gondolin ultimately because I lusted and was rejected,” he said. “Thinks't thou that I will, one day somehow betray Imladris because Beleg rejects me for Túrin?”

Elgalad's mouth was dry. “But wh-what,” he whispered, “if Beleg loves th-thee?”

“He does not,” Maeglin said flatly. “I would know. No-one has, not like that.”

And Elgalad felt it like a blow out of nowhere, a hurled dagger of deep and unexpected pity. He took a step forward, reached out and laid his hand palm flat on Maeglin's breast. He felt the heartbeat, rapid with emotion, saw the startlement his action brought to that proud face.

“I am not courting thee with pity.” But Maeglin's voice dropped into something complex and yearning. “I was on Tol Morwen. I saw Túrin's soul released. I know he loves Beleg, and the child...I have come to love him, but I wondered – if Beleg did love me, perhaps he would not be put in danger by Túrin, this time.” He smiled bitterly. “I truly hope this, for Beleg's sake. He is too good a man to die in grief again.”

Elgalad had to look away then, because Maeglin's face was open to pain, and it was too much.  
“Kn-knowest thou – ” He paused wondering if he should say anything, but Vanimórë would. He was only waiting, he said, for Maeglin to return before he spoke of the Mouth, of Angmar.

“Knowest _thou,_ ” Maeglin interrupted him heatedly, under his breath. “that Beleg thinks Túrin only loved him a little, in his own way?”

The pain became a weight in Elgalad's chest.  
“How c-could he?”

“Because Túrin never accepted that a man could lie with a man and not be unmanned. Because he wanted Beleg and felt guilt at wanting him. Beleg told me. Beleg was not permitted to see that Túrin cried out his name with love as he died. And what now? This is still Túrin. Will he lead Beleg a dance again, unable to admit his love until it is too late?”

“ _No,_ ” Elgalad exclaimed. “He w-will remember.”

“None of us returned from the Void are changed,” Maeglin told him. “I do not know that Túrin will be, though he loves Beleg now, adores him as a child does. Thou art like him, Beleg. He loves thee, and so I have come to thee because thou art outside this, in a way, and yet of it, to tell thee that I care for Beleg, I love my mother. I do not mean to betray any-one this time. And to whom would I betray Imladris or any-one here? These northlands are all but empty, we do not know what is in Angmar now, but there is no Morgoth here, nor his lieutenant, and even if there were – ”  
And then he stopped short.

Elgalad looked into his eyes. “ Angmar,” he said. “Thou knowest n-not who dwells in Angmar. B-but my l-lord does. Now.”

Maeglin said, without voice, as if sound would bring the eye of doom to rest on him:  
“Who?”

  
~~~


	14. ~ Past-Present. The Edge Of The Blade ~

  
“Who?” Maeglin whispered again. “What?”

Vanimórë was not here to turn to, and Elgalad did not want to disturb him. He also guessed, for he was no fool, and had seen the Maia's long, questing looks, why Coldagnir had asked to accompany him. He was trying – and failing – not to think about it. Reaching to Glorfindel, he had the impression of coming too close to boiling white flame. Recoiling, wondering, certain that Glorfindel's anger and Vanimórë's leaving were intertwined, he silently, diffidently, spoke Dana's name.

 _Thou canst talk of this to him, dearheart._ Her mind-tone was kind, firm; a mother encouraging a child.

He said quietly, “My l-lord wished to speak t-to thee, and Elladan and Elrohir. He w-was waiting for thee to return.”

Maeglin closed his eyes, opened them. “Tell me.”

“This is all I kn-know.” Elgalad hesitated. The sound of evening flowed into the chamber: birds, soft voices, the backdrop of running water. He drank of the tranquility before he continued.  
“There was a Mortal M-Man, long ago, who t-took service with Sauron, and b-became known as th-the Mouth of Sauron. It...lengthened h-his lifespan. H-he learned sorcery, and relished visiting t-torture and pain on others. Including my l-lord.”  
He had to turn away then, the thought like a sickness in him, like spider-venom; sickness and rage and love. Rage against those who delighted in harming others, love for Vanimórë who had endured that and more, and still ranked himself among the perpetrators; something stained and contemptible. A hand came down on his shoulder.

“All right,” Maeglin said steadily. “I see. Thou art telling me he survived Sauron's downfall, and came to Angmar?”

“Yes.”

“And no-one knew, not even Glorfindel, or Vanimórë?”

“It was h-hidden from them. Until we c-came here. My lord w-was too close, I th-think.”

Maeglin turned him. “Hidden because Vanimórë would have killed him for his past actions? And this man has his own part to play in Túrin's tale?”

He was very acute. Elgalad bent his head.

“But who,” Maeglin asked, “is powerful enough to hide him? And who is preventing Vanimórë from killing this man now? Thou hast said he knows.” He was frowning, grey eyes stark, glittering.

“Túrin,” Elgalad said, and Maeglin went perfectly still, so that the room seemed caught out of the stream of time. Then a child's voice – Túrin's – laughed from the gardens, and Maeglin moved away, throwing out one hand in a gesture of resignation.  
“His own curse. Of course.”

“A c-curse wrought in blood and d-death.” Elgalad looked out of the balcony, saw the child running, none the worse for his near drowning. His mother followed, stride long and light, at peace here, at home here. “In p-pain, in anguish. But also, m-my lord says, in l-love.”

“Yes. All of those.” Maeglin came to his side, watching the woman and child in the late-gold sunlight. “We knew something was wrong in Angmar. She has sensed it, Cell. Dreamed it, but has not told her husband, nor Ness for fear that they would feel it their duty to return there. What is he doing there, this Mouth?”

Elgalad thought of the women now settled in the house, the long journey with them, malnourished, scarred, uncertain of their future. Gallant. He did not want to imagine the women of Angmar as breeders for half-orcs, yet his mind circled back to it as an atrocity one cannot look away from, and he felt Vanimórë's impotent anger in his own veins. Two other figures came into view, following Cell, Sunniva and Ælfgifa, long healed of her fever, red-tinted fair hair shining.

“Not all the f-folk of Angmar d-died,” he said, his eyes still on them as Cell turned with a smile, saying something about the liveliness of children when they were about to be put to bed. There had been no hostility between the new arrivals and the older, only the natural caution between strangers, bridged by common sympathy. The Imladrian Elves, long used to Men, had welcomed them without reserve, and Elgalad knew that for all Vanimórë's assurances, Sunniva had held out no great hopes of a new life. She had done what was best for those she lead, and hidden her fears from the others, as a good leader does. A great load had been eased from the womens minds, it was in their faces, the way they walked. There was still the sense of being guests in a strange place, a disinclination to mingle, to wander, but that would fade in time. They were not yet returned to full health, but they had shelter, warmth, good food. And still, there were wounds that could never be healed.

 _We brought them to a place we thought was safe, and they may be in danger again..._

“We wondered,” Maeglin said. “We found something in the winter; a small, twisted orc-thing. It had died coming from the north. We kept it among ourselves, the twins, Beleg, my mother and I, and watched, but there has been nought else. We were planning a long patrol toward Angmar this summer.” He turned away from the bright evening.  
“Breeding orcs on women?” His tone opened into disgust, like a man tasting rotten fruit. “Beleg was right, we cannot ignore this. And we cannot allow this Mouth of Sauron to build an army with such get.”

Elgalad looked at his averted back, the river of jet hair that swayed with his movements. He wondered at Maeglin's wearing royal braids. He had seen Glorfindel's hair woven into the complex plaits on occasion, and recognized the signature of the House of Finwë. Was not Maeglin supposed to be unknown here? And then he thought, Aredhel. She had done this. Her own hair was dressed in this same pattern. It was audacious, the action of a proud mother challenging fate. And no-one noticed, or affected not to, which said a great deal about the woman herself. Would Maeglin, with so deep a betrayal, so much death attached to his name, ever be accepted into the House of Fingolfin? Perhaps his actions in this new life would decide that. His wide shoulders were braced as if under the weight of the past.

“Think'st thou I would ever ally myself with such a man?” he demanded suddenly, harshly, whirling to face Elgalad. “That I would ever _hate_ so much that I would go to this sorcerous _monster,_ and betray people I love, this valley?” He caught himself then, and his eyes went back, past the Void, Elgalad saw, to a legendary city within a circle of mountains.  
“And why not?” A hopeless laugh caught and cracked in his throat. “Did I not betray Gondolin to the darkest, most powerful god of all?” His hands came up to cover his face. “I knew,” he said, through them. “that this sentence was too light. I knew there must be something else.”

Elgalad went to him then, to the pain, the despair, and drew down the barrier of those slim fingers. He held them and the bitter, brilliant eyes with his own.

“I will not do such a thing,” Maeglin stated. “No doom, no fate will make me betray as I did once before. I vow it.” Softly spoken, but the last words carried a weight of Ages.

Elgalad said nothing.

“Thou art unsure. Yes, so would they all be, an they knew. Maeglin the traitor, the accursed.”

“No. It n-need not be that w-way. And thou h-hast made an oath.”

“Yes,” Maeglin said. He withdrew his hands, and unexpectedly relaxed into Elgalad's waiting arms with a groan that seemed to come from a world long sunk under the cold northern seas.

~~~

Coldagnir was naked now. Beyond the snow-smoke wave of Huan's hair, he heard an exultant, agonized cry.

“I know what it is thou art seeking. I have memories too, brother: burning, death...I fought beside Celegorm in the Dagor Bragollach.”  
“Thinks't thou that by enduring pain thou canst pay for the suffering? _I_ think thou art wrong, but it is not for me to judge thee, nor them.” Huan tilted his head back toward the twins.

“How else?” Coldagnir whispered. It was very difficult to speak now.

The pale blue eyes measured him. They were as clear as the waters of Gaear Gwathluin.  
“I do not know,” Huan admitted. “Perhaps thou must forgive thyself, brother.”

“Fëanor said that. And I... _cannot._ Thou hast said it: Burning, death, torture. And that was only in battle.”

“I saw Angband in Lúthien's mind, in Maedhros' too.”

Coldagnir flinched. He remembered the day all Angband had fallen into enchanted sleep. He had been a door-ward. Melkor rage after had shaken the halls and passages of the fortress. Maedhros he had seen, brought in bloodied, unbending defiance through the great doors, but nothing more once they had closed on him. Melkor would not have shared one of Fëanor's sons with any of his servants. When Fëanor brought Coldagnir to the Noldor encampment, his eldest son's eyes had held hate but no recognition. How would they?

Coldagnir remembered all his life. Too well.

“No-one truly knows it as I knew it. No-one but Vanimórë.”

Huan nodded, tilted his head, in a hound-like movement, quizzical.  
“Is it reparation if the punishment is enjoyable?”

The pit of Coldagnir's stomach was a red-hot knot of need. Huan smiled.  
“We will meet again,” he said. “brother. And now, I have other matters to attend to.” He pressed a brief, hard kiss on Coldagnir's lips, then walked away, breaking into a run, a long wolf-lope south.

~~~

He knew he had been with Finrod, knew it with the pulse of his blood, the song of his soul. He needed no memories when there was certainty. Waking after _Nost-na-Lothion_ , he had found himself laid beside Curufin, relaxed, sore, clean. The deep calm which was not lassitude, but founded in utter satiation, still held him and the others, imposing silence as they dressed.  
Fëanor was there, warm, poised, greeting them with a kiss, but saying little. Outside, under the sun, jugs of cool water were set on a long table. Celegorm drank with a memory-flash of fire, gusting wind, a cup at his lips, a taste that spoke of snow and the scent of pine. He looked for Finrod's creamy head, but he was not there. He had been. The scent of him still clung to Celegorm's hair.

After, they did not see one another until Huan's voice in his mind warned him of what might happen when Legolas met Eluréd and Elurín, of the bonds Glorfindel had set upon his lover on _Nost-na-Lothion_ when every other man and woman had been free. By then, swift, dazzling recollections had already flickered through Celegorm's mind. Eluréd and Elurín...He had never sought them out, as Glorfindel and Legolas had, but he knew why they had come to New Cuiviénen, and there was a certain responsibility for them knotted into the tangle of horror, shame and pity that had taken root in his soul. If the twins were not free of him, they had ensured _he_ would never be free of _them._

His father ushered them away from Glorfindel's tent, he and Finrod, with a firm hand on their backs. None of them were needed or wanted in the thunderstorm breaking there. Dana waited further away, looking north. Celegorm followed her gaze, then said abruptly, “I am going to them.”

The Mother's eyes came to his.  
“Vanimórë has gone to them. He will not harm them. I know him very well. He will give them what they need.”

“I know what they need, Lady, and he is the same as Glorfindel, an Elf with a god's powers. I am going.” He glanced at his father, who said nothing, did not need to. It was all in his eyes. _I do not believe they will hurt thee again._  
Finrod did not look at him at all, nor did he appear to be listening to the savage back-and-forth words still audible from his brother's pavilion. His profile was tranquil, creamy, only the faintest frown drawing down his brow.  
 _Look at me, damn thee!_ Celegorm wanted to shout, _knowing_ Finrod had been with him so few nights before, but also wise enough to realize that the images that had whip-cracked into his mind and dissolved as swiftly might be of the Winter Solstice. No matter, he and Finrod had been together on _Nost-na-Lothion,_ even if Finrod persisted in maintaining his unruffled ignorance. Still feeling that powerful punch, which he would repay in his own way, Celegorm did not believe his cousin was as calm as his outer appearance suggested.

Fëanor's eyes were glinting with amusement now, as if he read his son's mind, and Celegorm knew that he did, that and the fierce stare Finrod neither acknowledged nor returned. With real effort, he turned and stalked away, not surprised to find his father joining him, nor Dana. There was something he wanted to ask her, and she was perfectly aware of the question of course. She reminded him with a pang, of his mother. Between Nerdanel and Fëanor their sons could keep no secrets.

“What we saw, Lady,” he began, and she quirked a brow. “Eluréd and Elurín. Doriath. Was that true?”

Both her brows arched at that. “I did not lie.”

“But at that time,” Fëanor said. “Thou wert not on Middle-earth in body. Glorfindel told us. It was before thine awakening.”

Dana nodded slowly. “Thou art right. I did not take physical form. I slept then. And I dreamed of the world. Those two were passing through the very portal of death. I had to wait for that time to reach them. What thou didst see, what Legolas also saw, was under the arch of death's doorway. And so, in a way, they truly are mine. My spirit returned life to them. They have some power, through their foremother Melian or I, it matters not. Melian and I were close aforetime, and she could not help them, barred in Aman.”

“But thou didst not heal them, Lady.” Celegorm could not keep the accusation from his voice.

“They are what they are,” she chided coolly. “They were not, and are not, unhappy. They feared _thee,_ and Saewon, whom thou didst kill. _Thou_ hast healed them of that.”

“They are still mad.”

“And not unhappy,” she repeated, stern-faced. “They have evolved into what they are over thousands of years. Have I any right to take away the memory of every thought and action, every breath and step, every pain and pleasure? For that is what I would have to do.”

Celegorm felt himself flush, even as he considered. She was right of course. Daeron's words came back to him, on the island where he had been raped. _“They are as they are. And as they are I love them, and grieve for them.”_  
“I should see them.” And he bowed, then looked at Fëanor, who drew him close, and kissed his brow.

“I remember _Nost-na-Lothion,_ ” he murmured. “Shall I tell thee?”

Celegorm drew back, stared into his eyes, then looked past him, but Finrod's elegant figure had vanished.

“No,” he said. “No, _adar_. I know, in my heart. I remember...a little.”

His father smiled. “Art thou learning patience, my dear?”

“Not at all.” It was said through gritted teeth. “Damn him, and I am going now.”

“Expecting him to follow?”

“No, in fact. He will not. If he bows before one who betrayed him, his people will think him no king.”

“He does have a point,” Fëanor told him quietly. “Although I told him that if his people turned from him, they did not deserve _his_ loyalty.” He raised his hand to forestall Celegorm's next words. “But withal he _is_ a king. I believe that his folk would remain loyal. Perhaps he does too, but it is a good excuse.”

“ _Excuse?_ ” Celegorm exclaimed. “Thinks't thou he is truly...the unprincipled bastard !”

His father laughed, Dana's golden peal echoing it.  
“I think he is a tough opponent, Tyelkormo.”

“I am glad thou canst find amusement in it !”

“So wilt thou, one day.”

Celegorm whirled away to be halted by Fëanor's, “Wait.”

“ _Adar_?” He turned back.

“I wanted Eluréd and Elurín to come to _Nost-na-Lothion_ ,” Fëanor said, all laughter faded now. “to see thy reaction. I cannot forgive them, Celegorm, but I know that however mad they are, they will not hurt thee again. So go.”

 _What happened that night?_ Celegorm wanted to ask, but stifled it, and with that benediction, that trust, he went to his own camp to prepare for the journey. Later, waving away offers of companionship, he rode north. He expected to see no-one, and did not until the next morning, when the sun had laid gilt on the white-crowned Orocarni.

There was a man bathing in the shallows. Celegorm came upon him unexpectedly, riding over the gentle swell of land that had concealed the shore from his view. At first, he thought it Eluréd or Elurín, though he was still far from their enclave. Puzzled, he drew rein, letting Cangelon trot. He was unsure of his motivations, even the emotions which wound themselves into a complicated and painful knot in his breast. Perhaps it was not surprising so many threads tangled in lost Doriath and lead from that kingdom he had sworn to destroy, where he had died. He could still feel the erupting, awful pain of the death-wound that had lead him to a place more terrible than he could ever have imagined.  
Doriath. Dior's children, grandsons of the woman who, directly or indirectly, had caused Finrod's death. And that judgment, fair or no, he had laid down long ago. He believed it, could not see past it. He should hate those feral, moon-mad twins both for their blood and their acts against him. Perhaps he did, but hate springs from fear. On the longest night he had forced himself to face fear and overcome it.

He came down from the saddle, still uncertain, as the man moved, and he knew then it was not one of the twins, although the face was averted. Celegorm had not realized he could have identified the Iathrim brothers so easily. He watched the tall figure wade from the water, stand and draw a wet robe of white hair through his hands. He must surely have heard the soft thud of the horse's hooves, but he did not turn until Celegorm was close.

“I knew thou wouldst come,” Huan said, and Celegorm remembered his dream.

“Thou hast never spoken to me before.” He was aware he was staring.

One side of Huan's mouth lifted. “Did I not speak to thee in every other way?”

“Couldst thou change thy form – ”

“Then? No. It was a condition of my coming, that and human speech, save for thrice.”

 _And never to me._  
“Why now? Dana said that Eluréd and Elurín would not be harmed. Thou wert concerned?”

“Gorthaur's son will not hurt them. It is not in him. He knows too much about pain. No.” Huan turned, looked over his shoulder. “But I knew thou wouldst come.”

“Why, then?” Celegorm asked, thrown off-balance and resenting it. He was trying to see Huan the hound, and the hound was indeed there, in the lean play of sinew, the effortless movements, the dimensionless blue eyes, but Celegorm could not speak to Huan in this form as he had the great warhound that had loped at his side through war and peace.

“I wanted to speak to thee alone.”

“We have often been alone.”

“There speaks a prince.” Huan laughed. “who hunts with his brothers and household and servants, and sleeps, for now, within canvas walls. I mean _alone._ ”

“Very well, we are alone now,” Celegorm said sharply. “What wouldst thou say to me?”

“Later,” Huan said. “For now, let us hunt.”

On those words he sprang away, naked, wet, wild. Celegorm said, “Cangelon, follow !” and launched himself after Huan, bemused, angry and, as he sprinted, increasingly exhilarated.  
This was the chase, after all.

~~~

Eluréd reached the tree. He had been allowed to reach the tree, just as he had been allowed to break from Vanimórë's hold. Turning, watching the man pace toward him, he jumped, wrapping his arms about a branch...  
Hands caught his hips, pulled. He slid his thighs about Vanimórë's waist, and _onto_ him, impaling himself so deep on that engorged heat that a cry was ripped from his gut. His back struck the tree, and he whimpered, opened his eyes. Vanimórë's violet ones were burning jewels, red fire swallowing the pupils.

“Hard,” Eluréd whispered. “Take me _hard._ Hurt me.”  
He released his hold on the branch, wrapped his arms around hot muscle, silken hair, let himself be rammed against the rough bark, feeling every savage stroke, until the moans came thick and heavy from his throat. On the edges of awareness, he knew the colossal power of this dark god, that could take him like this until he he lost consciousness and still be taking him when he woke, driving him beyond what even he could bear. He sobbed, clutched, screamed, and then the fire-rose bloomed in the depths. It spread its petals, and his eyes flew wide. He saw his brother watching, lips curved in arousal, Daeron, the crimson-haired Balrog...He made a sound, and the touch came again, in rhythmic pulses that went so far beyond pleasure there was no name for it. It melted into the pain, becoming the thing he needed.

Vanimórë was swearing in a language that sounded like chips of obsidian, sharp and darkly gleaming. Between their bodies, Eluréd's shaft throbbed and he groaned in anticipation of the explosion that would, for a time, take away every thought, every emotion, when he would become the thunder of orgasm.

Then, “No,” Vanimórë growled, and went down slowly to the grass, bracing both of them until Eluréd lay under him.

“No. Not yet.”

Eluréd gasped, sought to writhe, to _move,_ to be taken past the unendurable.

“ _No._ ” Vanimórë slammed both arms behind his head, holding himself motionless, buried deep. “How long should I keep thee like this?” He lowered his head, licked the nub of one flat nipple, teased and sucked until Eluréd's breathing shattered in his throat.  
“ _Please._ ”

“No.” White teeth flashed in the shadows of raven hair. “How long canst thou hold?” He pulled back.

~~~

 _How long canst thou hold?_

The world fell into the polished black of Barad-dûr, every edge knife-sharp. It was like living within the facets of a crystal shaped by no art known to Elf or Man.

 _I will **not !**_

Lavender eyes smiled into his, Sauron's length was sheathed in him, and his own rose rigid over his stomach as he strained to hold, to hold...

“Thou wilt.” Softly. “Thou hast taught thyself to feel pleasure too well, my Vanimórë.”

A withdrawal. Sweat dewed his brow. A sharp thrust went deep and flared through the gland. He heard himself panting through his teeth. Fingers encircled his shaft, a thumb played over the slick tip, and there was molten lead at the join of his thighs. He felt his muscles crack with strain, fire danced in tremors over his skin.

 _Come for me._

 _No !_

 **Yes.**

He could not form words. His mind poured curses into Sauron's glittering, waiting eyes. Tears streaked down his temples, not of pain or fury or even hate, but the sheer striving effort to control his body's reactions. The body his father knew intimately. That would betray him.

~~~

 _“Please!”_ A different voice. Hot tightness around him.

 _No._

The cruel, beautiful image cracked asunder, melted back into daylight.

Eluréd was keening under him, a raw sound of anguish. His eyes were closed, his throat arched back.

What was pain? What was pleasure? At some point, they were indistinguishable.  
At this point.

 _Come._ Vanimórë thrust, and Eluréd clenched around him with a scream, spasms racking his body.

Vanimórë held. It was not over. He drew himself from Eluréd's body, turned. The sun had no strength, he was burning back into memory, clamped beyond release by rage, and _aching._ He had needed anger to quench pity, but too many things lived within his anger: Melkor, Sauron, the Mouth...

“Not gelded at all.” Elurín's fingers curled around him, their coolness tight and unbearable, his eyes enormous. “Do that to me.” He sank down on hands and knees, facing his brother, who now lay limp on the grass. His head lowered to drink the seed lying in white pearls on Eluréd's belly. Whose eyes fluttered open, whose hands gathered fistfuls of frosty hair.

Vanimórë's possession jerked Elurín forward with a cry. His back hollowed, and Eluréd dreamily watched as he threw his head up, staring, tethered by his own hands. Flesh slapped roughly against flesh, and he saw his twin's face freeze into a lovely yearning mask of pain, as he was taken more violently, Vanimórë ramming himself to the hilt. Elurín began to beg, to curse, then the pleasure ambushed him, and his lips parted in astonishment as he reached desperately toward orgasm. Impossibly soon, Eluréd felt his shaft fill. It was like the celebration nights, save there was no magic here, no drugs, only the onslaught of sensation that was more potent than either.

Elurín's face shook. “Please !”

And Vanimórë, rich voice shredded to a growl, refused him. He did not use power, but their own complicity, Eluréd realized somewhere on the edge of his mind, as his brother shivered in uncontrollable bursts. His arms gave way, so that his swollen cock slid against Eluréd's. Their lips met hungrily, they writhed together, and Elurín screamed, screamed and bit, buried his face against Eluréd's neck. He was like a man with his hand in a fire, unable to draw it away.

 _As I was. Ah, yes. Too much. Too much._

Through the silver ice-fall of his twin's hair, Eluréd saw Vanimórë's face, and with a heartbeat of wonder, of delight, realized he too was in the furnace. Then he shifted, whispered, “Now.”  
Elurín came in a frenzied, crying rush, bucking into Eluréd's body, grinding in again as the waves took him and, at last, drained him.  
Eluréd held him through the honeyed aftermath, running his fingers down the long, damp back, massaging his scalp, smiling with the song his body played, like a harp that vibrates long after the harpist's fingers have left the strings. At last Elurín raised his head, deep blue eyes met his. They were both smiling. Then their heads turned at another sound.

They were not the only ones who could shape what another saw. And, because they were adepts at spinning vision, because their foremother had gone like a shining arrow into this place, they knew where Vanimórë had taken the Balrog.

There was no grass, no sky, only the immensity of smooth, massive space underground. The walls reflected fire, caught the glitter of eyes. There was broken bodies and gem-wink, rutting, the stench of violence, blessedly indistinct and far too real. Orgiastic death amid carrion and furs, wealth and blood. Instinctively, the twins pushed themselves back. Firm, familiar arms came around them, and Daeron's scent of moss and forest springs.

The clearest image was that of a couch or table hewed from a great block of stone, and covered in the pelts of some long-haired animal. Vanimórë lay upon it, wrists manacled and drawn over his head, the chains hammered into the wall above. The red glow showed the sleek of sweat, his teeth bared as if fighting against more than physical bonds.

Great doors swung inward. There was laughter like flame whipped by storm winds, the crack of a lash, and there were Balrogs, human in form, flesh breaking over chasms of fire, hair of streaming darkness. If fire burned liquid black, it would look as they.  
One of them was shoved forward, born down by another, mightier than the others, cat-eyes of ember and jet, who took it like a dog. It was an image from the gutrock of the Hells, demon raping demon.  
The balrog finished, wrenched back the other's head, another poured a stream of red from a cup, iron-black and set with jewels, that the creature caught in its mouth, drank and choked on. The splashed blood seethed, hissed into smoke. The smaller balrog loosed a scream made of broken light, and was dragged to its feet, whipped toward where Vanimórë lay. It howled again, an alien sound of madness and lust, and the violet eyes stared up, hardened to adamantine resolve by the will behind them. And behind that, Daeron saw the terror Vanimórë would never show, never admit to feeling.

Eluréd whispered a protest.

“Hush, my dear. It is not real.”

  
~~~

  
Coldagnir remembered. He was in Angband. This was that time, the first time he had been allowed to take Vanimórë. There was the tang of sex in the chamber. Some-one had already had him, Melkor probably; his presence was heavy here, as were his bonds upon Sauron's son, against which he fought in vain.

He was eaten by the past. He knew quite suddenly, that he had never been free, never woken from an agelong sleep to find a changed world. There had been Utumno; there was Angband. That was all there was. His mind had created some strange and beautiful dream when he slept in the depths of Melkor's fortress, wherein Elves long dead had walked like kings, and he had not been a shape of power and dread, but the Maia of old... _Wild Flame_ he had been called then, before he gentled himself to serve...

Gothmog was inside him, pounding like a hammer.  
 _No! No!_  
Then there was the surge of warm blood down his throat, the insanity of agony and lust and hot, black sorcery. He was over Vanimórë, ravenous for him, nudging at the tight, reddened opening. The slave was so beautiful, vivid as the world had once been, seen from a different place, that lost glory. Vanimórë's head flung back, the sinews of his throat taut, as he braced...  
...and there came the _snap_ of metal parting. The violet eyes smiled into his, and then Coldagnir was on his back.

~~~

They saw the demon change, Daeron, and the twins. The darkness, the fire, flowed away like smoking ink, and the edges of the chamber blurred into nothingness. There was only the two of them, Vanimórë and Coldagnir, his face like a man startled awake by a battle-trump.

~~~

Vanimórë said nothing. He simply _looked,_ and Coldagnir closed his own eyes in pain and shame. Like the chop of an axe, so brutal that he was wildly disoriented, Gothmog, Daachas, Angband had gone, and he was not sure where he was or when, only that Vanimórë was above him. He reached out, touched hair and skin, and his lips parted in hopeless longing. His thighs slid apart, and he screamed as he was filled, screamed and began to beg for mercy, as he had when Gothmog first took him, when Melkor took him, before he began to _change._ Then some-one was speaking through the pain, not in the tongue of Utumno or Angband, nor in Elvish, but the language he had known in the Timeless Halls, which were so hard in a human mouth, images and emotions strung on icicles, sliding from the edge of a blade. He obeyed them, and with them, with each thrust, he was lifted from pain, from horror, into something that was wonderful, and then passed far, far beyond. The exquisite torment met pain again, and the two melded. There was no name for it, for it came into being in a place where words were worthless. His eyes opened very wide. He could hardly see. A mouth, warm, luscious, came down on his.

 _Please,_ his mind burned. He was pleading again, because if this did not end, he would go mad, be lost, char himself to ash...

 _No,_ Vanimórë said. And took him further.

  


~~~

 

A Coldagnir look-a-like. Artist is Shuangwen on DA.

  


  



	15. ~ The Anguish ~

“Look at me, Glorfindel, this is who and what I am. Will you face that at last, since you sent me to do as I would?”

“And thou didst do it. Enthusiastically.” Glorfindel stepped away. He had to. The titan within him, still largely unexplored, needed only one touch, even a kiss to leave ashes and death in its wake. He understood suddenly what Vanimórë feared: anger channeling power, losing control through passion or rage. Both.

“You knew what those twins are,” Legolas said, quiet as a bowstring before the loose. And unafraid, completely unafraid. “And you let me go to them at a time of _your_ own choosing. But I will not blame them.”

“Stop,” Glorfindel warned, voice clawed rough. “I was wrong to do that, but do not throw it in my face.”

“Ah, no, for I think I have that right.” Legolas cut a hand across the air between them. “Let us drag this hidden thing between us out into the open. It has been far too long.”

Their breaths came harshly in the silence, eyes locked like shields, ice-blue become hard fire.

“Thou art who I want,” Glorfindel said at last, bearing down on his jealousy as if it were an enemy to be throttled. And his power could become an enemy so very easily.  
Legolas was not appeased.  
“Do you think that you are not what _I_ want?” he asked disbelievingly. “I seduced _you,_ knowing what punishment the Valar purportedly meted out to those who dare to love their own gender. My father thought it was idiocy, and so did I. And it was.” Legolas pushed back a sheaf of tousled hair impatiently. “And what of that night, when I lay bound. Who were you with? Was I all you wanted then? Are you just beginning to learn that sex can be many things besides love?”

“Thinks't thou I did not know that?” Glorfindel snarled. “Hells, _Fëanor_ was my first lover, and I did not love him, but could not refuse him! I took Maeglin for – Eru knows! To prove something, and through hate and yes, lust.”

“Was it Fëanor?”

“I thought it did not matter to thee !” Bitterness was sour on his tongue.

“It matters because _you made it matter!_ ” Legolas threw back. “Because you do not, truly do not, understand my kindred, and to be Valar of the Elves, you must do so!”

It was so true that Glorfindel's next words died in his throat.  
“ _I have much to learn,”_ he had said to Fëanor, who had replied, _“We all have much to learn.”_

“Until you understand us, until you realize how beautifully innocent, how _guiltless,_ such times are with us, you will never know us,” Legolas pressed. “And perhaps I am as much as fault, because I did not tell you.”

“I am not ignorant, Legolas.” Glorfindel snapped. “I knew of the ways of the Sindar in Beleriand! And we were not so constrained then, ourselves.”

“It was not the Sindar or their kin who were weighed down by those damned laws,” Legolas hissed back. “Did you think our customs, our culture had changed, then? No. It was you _Golodhrim_ who changed. My father was at the Last Alliance. You saw our Solstice rites, and we saw yours. You did not _dare_ take pleasure in one another.”

“How could we, knowing what we did? Knowing the punishment, that there was no appeal !”

“You told them, Glorfindel. _You_ told them of their fate.”

“It was whispered before that. But yes, yes I did. I confirmed it.” He threw back his head, staring at the canopied roof above him, muscles locked. “I had to. Too many had gone into the Dark. I wanted to save some of the Noldor.” He spoke as if to himself. “And I _detested_ it, hated myself, my celibacy, the bloody pitiless laws.”

“I understand that.” Legolas' voice was taut. “But now understand _me._ ”

Again, that was true.  
“Understand you? Thranduil said I had doomed thee.” Glorfindel lowered his head, seeing the prince through a veil of flame.

Legolas lips curled expressively. “Of course he would say that to you. He did not love the _Golodhrim,_ though he maintained a friendship with Elrond. I think you never really considered that either, that he would not permit you into his realm. He does not _like_ your kindred, Glorfindel, and for a multitude of reasons.” He shook his head, as if at a long ago conversation with his father. “He is not blinded by hate, but he will never love the _Golodhrim._ And yes, he was concerned for me, for my fate if I should die in battle, if those tales of the judgment upon us were true. But I would not have heeded Mandos, as I told you. Better to remain an unhoused _fëa_ on Middle-earth than rebirth in Valinor. Rebirth to _what?_ ”

“So then, taking other lovers did not matter?” Glorfindel took two steps forward and seized Legolas' bare shoulders.

“No, and I came to know it did _not,_ not on those nights.” He wrenched back. “As all my people know. Jealousy is a thing I understand. Do you not think I have felt it? But you set your will on me, and then allowed _yourself_ freedom!”

He had. He had done that. The night of _Nost-na-Lothion_ had come down on him with all its power, power that the Noldor had not truly known before then, freedom that they had certainly never known since before the Great Journey. But Legolas and his kin had.

“What you will come to see,” Legolas broke the tortuous silence, padding around Glorfindel like a wolf, and Glorfindel followed his moves, wanting, and at this moment, hating. “is that these nights are – ” He stopped, pushed back his hair impatiently, his brows drawn. “For the most part, they are nothing like falling in love, although they can act as as a spur to reluctant lovers, to those who are unsure.” Staring with uncompromising, infuriating honesty into Glorfindel's eyes, he said, “We do not _own_ the one we love; we share their lives. The one you were with that night. Or more than one. Do you see yourself building upon that?”

“No,” Glorfindel growled through a swollen throat.  
 _“I do not command Legolas, but I will not share him,”_ he had said to Fëanor, deciding _for_ Legolas, sublimely sure of himself.  
 _Some people are not made for these games._  
Ah, what a fool he was, he thought corrosively. Legolas was more eminently suited to such games than the Noldor.

Dana's words. _Love is not about ownership._

 _How well do we know one another?_ he wondered suddenly, as the bedrock of their relationship crumbled under his feet.

“Neither do we. It is apart from our lives, more than the dream-paths, less than reality.” Legolas clenched his hands briefly. “It can deepen affection, friendships, yes. It makes us more _aware_ of desirability.” Suddenly he laughed as if seeing the trick. “Ask Fëanor. He would not even need this to be explained him. We live in a state of arousal in my home, enjoying it, and does not he, all the time? You unfortunate Noldor were constrained by the laws, until only _now_ are you tasting true freedom. You say you know that sex does not equate with love, but the truth is, you knew it once, in Valinor and in Gondolin. And after thy rebirth were forced to forget it. When I came to Imladris, I _pitied_ you, all of you. The only relief you could find was in battle. No wonder you devoured me. You were ravenous!”

Glorfindel did not feel himself move. There was a light in the pavilion, blinding, seething. He was back inside the fury and...yes, that was why. Ravenous. Thousands of years unnaturally bound by laws which gelded the Noldor, even those who, like Finrod, had lived what the Valar would call _natural_ lives. Ignorance was forgivable, but he was not ignorant, not after his rebirth. How could he risk damning another soul? And then Legolas came with his shameless, generous virginity, his youthful love, and smashed Glorfindel's long celibacy to shards, given him so much, allowed him to live again.  
The sunfire billowed within him, molten, deadly waves.

 _...do not own the one we love..._  
do not own...  
we share...  
share...

Time after time Legolas had returned to Imladris, and as he grew, so did his passions. They were delightful, voluptuous, and Glorfindel had never questioned why, or whether Legolas were faithful to him during their long separations. Was that arrogance, or fear of the truth? And now, the shackles were truly off. That was what Fëanor had wanted, the night of _Nost-na-Lothion,_ for the last link in the chain to be shattered. All of the Noldor had been chained to a degree, by the laws, by themselves; all save Fëanor, the flame that lit a few lonely fires in the cold nights of three Ages.

_We were supposed to be as Legolas **is.** As Fëanor always was._

He plummeted down and inward. A voice brushed against his mind, willow-supple, steel-supple.  
“Release me and keep me, or bind me and lose a part of me.”

He felt those words like the jab of a spear, and held to the shock, pulling himself from the power. Wool scraped under his fingers, his knees. He was kneeling, Legolas before him, his face a battleground of determination, pain, anger, love, but there was no shame, no guilt. Slowly, the prince sat back. His hair spilled on the rugs like wheatstraw, and Glorfindel's own disheveled golden waves coiled over it, into it.

“Will you not understand that it does not matter unless you wish it to? But binding me against my will – that matters.”

Glorfindel took a long breath, held it for a moment in the fist that contained a firestorm of jealousy.  
“How well do we know one another, Greenleaf?” He sounded distant, strange. “Enough for forgiveness? I do not know if I can surmount what I feel. Thou hast known me better than I know thee.”

Legolas gazed back at him, and all Glorfindel could think of was of the prince taking Eluréd, feral as a wolf. He had not wanted to see it, and had not been able to forbear. If it was some kind of self-punishment, it had been effective. And impossibly, unexpectedly arousing.

“I do know you,” Legolas murmured. “I know what you said that night in Imladris, the first night you took me.” He lifted handfuls of their hair, and began to braid them together. “ _'Nothing can break what I will forge here,'_ you said.”

Glorfindel watched the bright and pale gold intertwine, Beyond it, his deft fingers, Legolas was engorged, full, and so he was himself, still. And what he had said long ago, was indeed true. He had known it in his blood, his soul.

“I also said _'I would want to own thee forever and the distance between us is too wide.'_ ”

Legolas looked up under dark rills of lashes. “Only if you would now make it so. Did I not give you everything? Did you feel ought was lacking?” He sat back on his heels, one hand curling about his swollen length and sliding up it, slowly, tormentingly. “So magnificent I thought you Tauron,* and so _sad._ So imprisoned. Did I not open the cage?”

A greater heat than that of power rushed into Glorfindel's loins. He was so hard now it was a physical pain, and he heard himself groan as Legolas' free hand stroked delicately over his breeches, started to unloose the buttons. He could not think. Everything and nothing had changed.

“There is a saying,” Legolas' voice came to him like the sough of wind through leaves. “Sex solves nothing because it is not supposed to solve anything. You _Golodh_ have made it such a serious matter, although that is not your fault. But the old laws are broken, lover. Eru himself broke them. They were never meant for us.”

The air seemed chill against Glorfindel's cock as it jutted free of the doeskin. Now the power was burning in another place entirely. Everything was _there;_ there as Legolas straddled him, _there_ as he thrust himself down, so deep that their shocked exhalations mingled. He was within Legolas, all of him, body, soul, inside the striving of the wood-Elf's muscles, the thundering rush of his blood. Waters were flowing, feeding the roots of mighty trees and small, secret flowers. Rain fell in bright showers on the green palms of leaves; an autumn storm called forth a roar of defiance from the forest as it blasted out of the north. The sound grew until it filled Glorfindel's hearing, fierce, untrammeled, and through it pulsed the heartbeat of the Elves of the woods, their ancient song. Forever wild. Forever free.

“What wouldst thou have me say?” he asked, a long time later. “I am a jealous, arrogant Finwion.”

“Yes,” Legolas agreed, mouth against his chest. He propped his head on one arm, and Glorfindel swept loose hair over one shoulder, regarding him, high cheekbones tinged with color, lips swollen by kisses that had been as savage and beautiful as the coupling. “And I have to admit, I am also jealous. Do you not think it is hard for me to see your erstwhile lovers, knowing how seriously you take these things?”

“I was not with Fëanor, Legolas,” he said truthfully. “He is like to cause me enough problems without that added complication. Nor Ecthelion. There has been no-one else until _Nost-na-Lothion._ I think thou knowest that. And now, only now have I truly learned what jealousy is.”

“You watched me, did you not? With the twins.” Legolas raised a brow, as if intrigued.

The coiled anger unfurled again, a sleeping dragon. Anger, the heat-prickle of arousal.  
“Yes.”

“Then you saw why they wanted me. It was not love.”

“Yes.” Glorfindel moved restlessly. “And I felt thy people through thee. I have always felt it in thee, but not like this.”

“Ah.” And Legolas smiled, leaning forward. “The summer Solstice comes hard upon the heels of this last celebration, lover. So, what will you do?”

“I will not bind thee.” And the dragon stretched its claws. “I thought thou wouldst go to Fëanor, and he to thee. He knows what is within thee; he saw it clearer than I did.”

“Ah,” Legolas said again, and nothing more.

Silence ran like a river between them.

~~~

The hills unfurled like green velvet under his feet, which flirted only lightly with the turf, and Huan ran before him, sometimes a warhound, sometimes a man. The sea sank behind the folds of land, and the mountains upheld the sky in the east, stern crumbling titans with frost-white hair. White as the one who finally slowed, so that Celegorm could bring him down on the grass, half-laughing, cursing, gathering a breath to say, “I claim the kill. So now, _talk_ to me !”

“But I _have_ spoken with thee.” Huan's teeth gleamed. He reached up his hands to cup Celegorm's face. The touch was hot, bearing a crackling charge such as a dog's pelt sometimes does. The Fëanorian jerked away, rose to his knees.

“I told thee," Huan added. "I aided Lúthien to prevent thee from a monstrous act.”

“I would not have touched her !” Celegorm snapped, watching as Huan turned on his side, relaxed, powerful, so very strange. The fold of one long thigh hid his groin, but not enough to cover his erection. It was both disturbing and exciting.  
“And would not one who went into Angband and outfaced Morgoth have been able to prevent me?” he asked dryly.

“The attempt in itself would have been wrong.”

“There was no attempt, and that is truth.” He shook his head. Lúthien had frozen him with ice and contempt, her words like hurled blades, the more wounding because she knew precisely where to aim them. If he had tried to force her, it would have been through fury, not lust.

“I thought thou didst love her more than I.” He buried his hands into the grass, watched the stalks bend and curl. “My most faithful companion who turned from me to those who used the one I loved, and took him to his death.”

Huan's fingers locked on his wrist. “I never loved any-one more than thee, Tyelkormo. Why thinks't thou I returned?”

“I owe thee my life.” Celegorm looked up into those clear blue eyes. “Why this? Now?”

“Because,” Huan smiled brilliantly. “However much thou didst hate Beren and Lúthien, part of thee has come to care for their grandchildren. They are not harmed, but I wanted to see how thou wouldst react. Thou shouldst hate them, and do not.”

“I do not know what I feel for them.” Celegorm closed his eyes briefly on the guilt-desire-horror. “But I saw how wounded they were. Still are. And what they are, they became because of my actions.”

“Partly, and partly because of Saewon. Thou didst not touch them, but he thought he knew what thou didst want to do to them.” Huan's hand stroked up his arm. “But it was not.”

“No,” Celegorm murmured. “No, though they had to take me back there for me to know it.”  
“ _Kinslayer. Is this not what thou didst intend?_ ”

 _Kinslayer._ And he had killed Saewon, and felt no guilt. Nor did he feel it now.

“So I have proved myself...worthy to see thee in thy true form?” Celegorm asked sardonically.

Huan laughed. “What is our true form? Coldagnir's is fire. Before we chose the forms of the Children we were simply energy. Formless, or able to take any shape. This is no more my _true_ form than the hound is.” His long lashes lowered. “It troubles thee.”

“What thinks't thou? In Valinor, in Middle-earth thou wert Huan, my warhound. I knew thee different, but I did not know why.”

“And _this_ troubles thee.” He drew Celegorm's hand to his groin, and the Fëanorion drew in a breath at the heat and hardness, even as he opened his fingers to enclose it.

“I watched thee in Valinor, and when we came to Middle-earth. I saw thee take lovers, and few meant aught to thee. I saw that of all Fëanor's children thou didst not seek to prove thyself worthy of thy father.” He throbbed under Celegorm's clench and arched his neck, long and inviting. “What thou didst need to do, building, ruling, administrating, warring, thou didst excel at, but thy love was the wild lands, the thrill of the hunt. The wild is in thy blood. Oromë saw it, as did I. Of all the children thou wert most like to him. He loved thee for it, and so did I.”

Celegorm suddenly found himself on his back, waves of snow falling about his face; Huan's hair, heavy and cool. He pushed his hands into it.  
“No-one save my brothers gave me more loyalty than thee, until the end,” he said savagely, heat licking into his loins. “Thy defection hurt well-nigh as much as if they had turned from me. Do not do that to me again.”

Huan smiled down at him, close-lipped. “I think thine arrogance is the one thing I have truly missed, _master._ ”

“Swear it !” Celegorm insisted, and Huan tugged against the hold on his hair as he shook his head.  
“No oaths between us,” he murmured. “I will not permit thee to destroy thyself again, and if I have to run against thy wishes to prevent it, I will.” He parted the laces at Celegorm's chest, pushed the shirt over his head, and bit lightly at his nipples. Celegorm gasped and bucked, cursing as his boots and breeches were drawn away. He rose very fast, throwing Huan to his back with a foot hooked around his ankle.

“No more betrayal,” he declared, voice husking as the blood beat white-hot in his groin.

Huan lifted his long legs, his breathing hitching. “Beautiful _arrogant_ Tyelkormo,” he taunted. “Thou wilt never learn.”

~~~

Coldagnir fell through broken tears and the fire of his own soul. He screamed with ecstasy too great for for fleshly form to bear, and then he wept in the long spasms of release that came like a storm of waves onto a beach, breaking and withdrawing again and again. Then the sea of flame held him, and it was powerful, gentle. He curled into it.

When the world came back, when he knew whom – what – he was, and he felt himself as form, he gasped and shuddered, opened his eyes. There was no Angband, no roof of colossal, heat-shadowed stone. The sky arched over him, clean blue, and he smelled grass and water. Some-one picked him up. Lassitude robbed his muscles of strength, and there was pain, a deep ache that melded with relief. He allowed them to claim him, his head to fall back, eyes drifting shut again until coolness welled over his body. His feet touched smooth pebbles, coarse sand, his cheek came to rest against another's, and through the contact of skin on skin he felt the adamantine vitality that was...

He caught at the one who supported him.

“It is all-right.” To his surprise, the answering voice sounded like he felt, deep-floating with the purge of exquisite torment. “But I had to take thee back there, did I not? That was what thou didst want.”

 _Yes._ Coldagnir could not speak aloud, not yet. He leaned against Vanimórë on legs that tremored, his arms sliding around the hard torso, and let the water and the closeness ease both body and mind. He had, for a terrible time, thought this new-found freedom was a dream, had felt again Gothmog's violence, and his own madenned lust, before Vanimórë smashed the vision apart and taken him. Punishment, he had wanted, but what he had received was –

“Was it not punishment?”

His knees became as fluid as the shifting pool.  
“It was magnificent punishment. And thou wert there with me.”

He drew back a little, to look into the beautiful eyes. In the depths, a small flame of amusement lit the dense violet.

“Thou needs't not have given me pleasure.”

“After Gothmog? I think I did. And I wanted to.” Vanimórë drew him down into the pool. The water rose to their chests, a crystal embrace. “Thy pleasures under Melkor were dark ones. But no-one had thee as a lover.”

Coldagnir quivered as water was poured from cupped hands onto his head, catching on his lashes.  
“Did I make requital?” he asked.

“To me, yes, _Nemrúshkeraz._ ” ** Vanimórë smiled, fingers drawing through Coldagnir's wet hair pleasurably. He stiffened at the last word.

“My name,” he said, remembering light, glory, being joy and fire incarnate. “My name, once.”

“It can be again.”

“Knowest thou...that Fëanor said he would not let Melkor have my soul?” He searched Vanimórë's face.

“Yes. He has bound himself to thy fate.” “Fëanor is – ” He stopped.

“Fëanor _is,_ ” Vanimórë agreed, and rose, leading him from the water. The sun kissed their backs, falling aslant now from the west.

“I am still afraid.” Coldagnir gripped his hand, and Vanimórë turned. “Of Melkor, yes, but Gothmog told me, _'From the beginning, unto forever, thou art mine, little brother.'_ ”

“Melkor's spirit may move in Arda, but Gothmog's does not,” Vanimórë said, and the pressure on Coldagnir's hand increased reassuringly. “He wanted to take away all hope from thee, as Melkor did me. If he wants thee, he will have to fight for thee.” He glanced around to see Daeron, Eluréd and Elurín approaching. They too must have bathed, for water droplets clung to them, but they had paused to bring a jug of wine from their pavilion. The twins expressions held repletion, serenity, as they formally poured cups and proffered them. There was none of the taunting viciousness of their challenge to him in their eyes or their movements.

“My thanks.” Vanimórë drank, and Coldagnir too. The wine lapped soothingly at his scorched nerves.

“ _Our_ thanks,” Eluréd said languorously.

Vanimórë gazed at him. “It was my pleasure,” he returned with the flick of a smile. “But be thou careful,” he advised, and met Daeron's eyes. “A moment with thee.” Handing the cup back, he walked a few paces away.

“Nothing has changed,” Daeron murmured. “But I thank thee also, for thine intervention.”

Vanimórë slid his hands into the frosty-black hair. “Nothing has changed,” he agreed. “But thou art their anchor, and their love, thou knowest it.”

Daeron's smile was wonderfully sad. “I give them whatever they ask for. And I take whatever they give. I will try to curb them, but now they are bound to the _Golodhrim,_ not to me alone.”

“I know. I see no harm in that.”

“Will Glorfindel seek revenge?” Daeron asked.

“Dana would not permit it,” Vanimórë said simply.

“Upon Legolas?”

“Thou also?” Vanimórë asked wryly. “Blood calls to blood does it not? I think not. But Glorfindel needs to understand and accept him.”

“I wonder if he will? He is a son of the woods, that one.” Daeron laid a hand on Vanimórë's heart, then whispered, “Angband.” His eyes, dark, clear green, were unblinking.

“I am sorry for making thee see it.”

Daeron shook his head. “No,” he said. “No. I – we – needed to see it, I think. I hated the _Golodhrim,_ perhaps part of me always will, but they fought valiantly, and lost well-nigh everything. And the Enemy – ” A shudder went through him like a whip. “If that was Angband, there was no threat more dark, no danger more dreadful.”

“No.” It had been difficult to summon and build that vision. Unlike Coldagnir, Vanimórë had seen it for what it was, known it was an image. Even so...

The children will carry their wounds agelong, and nothing will heal them,” Daeron whispered. “But that is true of thee also. And whom is there to heal thee, son of Sauron? Or should I ask, wilt thou allow thyself to be healed?”

Vanimórë loosed his hold on the damp, glittering hair slowly, letting the strands fall, silver-black, black-silver.  
“I am afraid to seek healing, lest I do harm without meaning to.” He kissed Daeron then, a deep, fierce-gentle kiss of desire and regret. “Thou art the waters under the earth,” he whispered, drawing away. “No wonder they drink from thee.”

Daeron's eyes looked into the sea-buried past. “We call that _the Anguish_ – that place to which thou didst take them. It requires immense control from those who would feel its double-edged blade, and a deep knowledge of both pain and pleasure. It takes the few who attain it beyond themselves, and can burn the soul.”

“And thou knowest it.”

“As thou,” Daeron said softly.

“Yes.” Vanimórë felt the acid of self-hate scour him raw again.  
 _I always fought. I always lost. He found it very satisfying to break me over and over._

“It takes a deep soul to encompass the Anguish.” The green eyes held a world of empathy, but Daeron could not possibly know.

“ _They_ can encompass it,” Vanimórë turned as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Wilt thou return to us?” Elurín asked, sweetly smiling.

“Perhaps.” There was no resentment in him, no anger at the twins actions. He had not wanted to hurt them physically, and so had done the only thing he could. “But now, I must go. I have matters to attend to, far away.”

They wound their arms about him, trustfully as tired children, and then allowed Daeron to lead them into the pavilion, their heads resting against his.

Coldagnir handed Vanimórë his clothes silently, drew on his own with careful movements.

“There are marks on thee,” he said quietly, and after a pause, “What of Elgalad?”

“He will know.” Vanimórë knotted a leather thong. “I needed this.” He made a gesture encompassing Coldagnir, the Iathrim pavilion. “As thou didst. There have been few times of pleasure for me. But those times were magnificent, I was a traveler in a land steeped in agelong winter. A handful of times, I came upon fires to drive away the cold. Shared pleasure.” The purple eyes narrowed, as if fixed on a distant point in time. “And now, I am free and unfree. I love Elgalad; thou knowest it. And I am afraid to touch him.”

Coldagnir nodded. One only had to watch the two together, the language of their bodies, the way their eyes kissed when their mouths did not. And he thought then of the profound beauty of Elgalad's kiss in Imladris.  
His cheeks burning with the memory, he said, “He is not delicate. And his heart is immeasurable.”

“I know. But I am what I am.” Vanimórë shrugged, and for a moment, Coldagnir saw the child that he had been in Angband, terrified and defiant, looking out from under three ages of war and slavery.  
 _This is what Elgalad sees. Yet Vanimórë sees nought in himself to love. What does he see?_  
His legs were still shaking, he could feel deep within, the aftershocks of an orgasm that had racked his body and soul, was still riding on them. Looking into that hard, so-beautiful face, Coldagnir wanted to laugh, to weep. And he wanted the _Anguish_ again and again, until it ate his sins and birthed him anew.

“Yes,” Vanimórë said. “Ah yes, I know.” He drew a finger across Coldagnir's lips. “ _Nemrúshkeraz._ ”* And it sounded like an endearment, a blessing. “Let us go.”

_And when I come to the Anguish, all I see is my father's face looking back at me. He was right. For me there is no freedom. Even now._

 

~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Nemrúshkeraz
> 
> Pink Siamese worked out the Valarin name for Coldagnir.


	16. ~ Moondark ~

  
The one who had been Zeva sat before the fire as the darkness hunched and peered over his shoulders. Winter. The days were bitter and short, the nights endless.

The Lord Sorcerer had said nothing to him when he left the chamber at dusk. Zeva was a thrall, and thralls did not ask questions of their masters. He had simply gone – and the youth was conscious of a deep sense of relief. He looked into the flames, and slowly something cracked inside him, like a burned log breaking apart. An eye, closed since Mordor, closed since the sorcerer touched him, blinked open. The spirit of Zeva saw...

He saw a young man sitting before a fire in a stone room. His hair was very long, and loose, half hiding his face. Such a _lost_ face, all eyes and fine-drawn bones.

He was...

_I was..._

The youth shuddered, drew in a breath.

_Zeva._

He looked up, into the flames. His spirit winged into the dark frightened eyes.

And he woke to a living nightmare.

He remembered, but it might have been another person, some-one drugged and passive, who served the sorcerer.

That interminable night, the crushing weight upon his soul began to melt away, and he wept, shock after shock striking him relentlessly like a bully who will not stop punching even after their victim is beaten. He paced the chambers, threw open the door to the cold hall beyond. Only some blind animal instinct prevented him from running to the foot of the tower and out into the snowy ward. Later, he wished he had tried to flee, but when the sorcerer returned, Zeva was waiting. When dawn came, the door opened, and the sound lashed fear through him so that he looked, like a hunted animal, for somewhere to hide. He huddled into an alcove, the stones turning the sweat on his back to ice.

The man who returned was a stranger. His flesh was fissured, dry as earth in a drought year, and his movements were febrile. One of the guards supporting him glanced at Zeva, said something in the Black Speech. The sorcerer's head lifted, and he pointed with a palsied hand toward the door, a wordless order to leave. Zeva bowed his head and obeyed, trembling so violently that he almost fell down the winding steps. The warriors found him in the lowest room, and one of them, iron-faced, disinterested said, “You will not approach the Lord Sorcerer's rooms until sunset. Henceforth every dark of the moon you will stay in his chambers until he returns. When we escort him back, you will come here and wait until dusk, when you take him food and drink.” He turned away before he finished speaking, but his companion looked back and grinned, showing long yellow teeth like a carnivorous horse.

Zeva found a corner and huddled in it, while a blizzard lashed the castle walls. There was a fire in the chamber for the guards, but winter bit deep in this land, and no fire seemed able to loosen its jaws, for all the steams and smokes that rose from Carn Dûm, mingling with the sagging clouds. He thought of the warm, spotless tents of the Rayabi, the furs and the bright hangings.

A warrior he had been, blooded by his first conflict, and he wished he had died there, before the gates of the Black Land. Imak, the chieftain's second, had spoke him fair after their escape, though the battle had been lost. The Rayabi had not been shamed, he said. There had been anger in his eyes when Zeva was chosen to serve the Lord, but he had not dared to question, to even object. After, his people turned away. He did not exist to them, was a coward who should have taken his own life. Among the Rayabi, suicide was preferable to dishonor, but he was no longer a warrior and had lost that privilege. Yet they did not know how it was, had not been enspelled, bound to mindless slavery.

 _I_ was _a warrior._

Once. Now he was a thrall, nothing more than a prize-boy, as his people termed handsome youths taken in battle; less than that, since they at least were valued for their beauty and bedworthiness, for any skills they brought to the tribe.

_But I remember._

At dusk, he carried hot meat and mead up the spiraling stairs to the topmost chambers, and the Lord was waiting, vigorous again, a man in his prime. It was impossible, unholy. And gods, _gods,_ his possession was the vilest yet, the most humiliating and agonizing. Yet the smothering enslavement, a sense of being both drugged and drunken, did not return.

It was not a blessing. There was no fog now stifling his thoughts. The Lord's abuses were brutal. There was a taint about him that obliterated his looks, and the seed that Zeva was forced to swallow, that slid stickily down his thighs, had a stench as of rotten meat. The sorcerer was performing black sorcery down in the bowels of the fortress, something that took a heavy toll, and only an equally fearful magic could explain his recovery. But he was unnatural, corrupt, and whatever rites he practiced were equally abhorrent. When he was sent to the kitchens, Zeva would pass air-shafts and hear noises: bestial grunting, unhuman screams, but he saw nothing, and balked at imagining what lay down there.

But for one night every moondark he was alone. It was little time, but he nurtured the hope like an ember, and tried to perform his tasks with the bovine demeanor of a thrall. He could not have maintained the performance but for the horror. It worked on his mind in strange ways; he could not endure it, and yet he did, and because he did, it could not be real. No-one was meant to endure such things, thus there was an unreality to the days and nights. Save for the pain. There was nothing unreal about the pain when, laughing and hissing in the Black Speech, the sorcerer took him. He did not rape Zeva constantly, at times he looked too weary, or distracted, but when he did, it was with gleeful savagery.  
Zeva did not understand the tongue, but came to know one word, spat like a curse over and over: _Vanimórë._  
“Look at me, _whore!_ feel me inside thee, watch me! _Look at me ! Vanimórë!_ ”

When Zeva screamed helplessly, the Lord would come to his release sooner. It was shameful to use this knowledge to spare himself, but he was mad, he knew. With the freeing of his mind had come insanity.

And then one day, as the sorcerer pounded into Zeva, face red and twisted with striving, he spat, “Dark whore, dark _prince!_ Who is thy master now, _Vanimórë?_ ”

Dark prince...within the scorch of his abused body, Zeva finally realized who the Lord spoke of, and who, by remove, he was truly raping, or wished he were.

He did not know the name, but he knew of the one the Rayabi called the Dark Prince, had even seen him, two years before the battle at the Black Gate, when he had come to the tribe as an emissary of the Great Lord.

Zeva remembered the sense of _presence_ , the terrifying beauty. It was said he was a White Demon of the West, bound to the Great One for eternity, yet he had not carried himself like a slave. There was a flashing smile, white as frost, as he talked easily to the Khagan, the easy arrogance of one who knows his worth. Two swords he bore as the Rayabi did, _As I did, for a little while._ but no jewel, no decoration, no visible flaunting of power save himself. And that was enough.  
That night he was seated in a place of honor as the tribe gathered. The women danced, and the youths coming to manhood, Zeva among them, performed their own blade-dances. The Dark Prince rose after, bowing to the women, and despite his alien glamor, there was no doubt that he appreciated them as much as any man. He said something that brought rippling laughter, then turned to the young men, all of them trying to look taller and older than they were.

“They are very skilled, Ozrim-Kha,” he spoke in a voice rich as cream, and looking up, Zeva saw the Khagan's fierce old eyes gleam with unmistakable pride. It mattered to him, the Dark Prince's praise.“May thy swords ever sing in thine hands.”  
His eyes had color even in the night-wash of the braziers. Purple, Zeva saw, brilliant and inhuman.

After the prince had gone, he visited his father.

“Jhitun-Qari.*” He bowed, and sat respectfully at the shaman's feet. “Who is he, the Dark Prince? Is it true he is bound to serve the Great One? That he is a White Fiend?”

Shamans did not marry, but Jhitan had been wed and a father when his eye opened. It was rare, but when such a thing happened, the man or woman must, by Rayabi law, be free to pursue their training and devote their lives to the clan, thus the marriages were annulled. Zeva's mother had later married the Khagan's eldest son, Dham, who raised Zeva as his own. There was no stigma attached to it, either for mother or son.

Jhitun had made a strange sign, a cupping of his hands.  
“Why do you ask, young hawk?”

“I had not seen him before, Qari. He is not like us.”

“No-one knows who he is.” Jhitun shook back his many braids, then drew a handful of polished stones from a pouch and scattered them. He frowned at the pattern, which to Zeva looked simply pretty, purple, green and white, amber the color of Jhitun's eyes, and his own. “But he is Godblood. Any-one with the open eye can see it. And I will tell you a thing: they are best avoided by Men.”

Zeva thought he understood. There had been an excessive... _richness_ to the Dark Prince. He could only liken it to feeding mead to a baby still at the teat.

“Place guards at the front of your mind,” the shaman said after a long pause, laying his open palm on Zeva's brow. “If you ever come near those with the great powers. Thoughts. Strong, loud thoughts. A song, a lover, riding the plains, good food and drink. Or think of nought. Drift. Mist is hard to catch hold of.”

Fascinated and chilled, Zeva had said, “Why, _Qari_?”

“Because, if you are fortunate, the Godblood will see that and look no further.” His lean face softened. “You have the unopened eye.” He pressed his thumb gently between Zeva's brows. “Like me, it may come to you late. But it will come.” He nodded, his gaze far-off. “It will come.”

Zeva wondered, in Carn Dûm, if the shaman had seen this future for him, if his words had been a warning. Would such defenses work against the sorcerer? He was no god, but he had laid a spell on Zeva's mind, taken away his awareness, his very self, and now the shackles were loosening. Why, he did not know. Had his eye opened, as Jhitan prophesied? If it had, there was no power in it, only knowledge, but it was imperative that he not betray himself. Now, at least he could think, and if he could think, he could plan. If he could plan, perhaps he could escape...  
But it was so hard to think of anything but the Lord. Zeva was still under a pall, as was all this land, where the mist hung low and the clouds wept white tears of snow and sleet as if the the sky were in ceaseless mourning. His mind fled from it, to the Sagath, where the wide river Sa ran north toward the inland sea.

_My home..._

The lore-women told that the Rayabi had come from the Sea of Rhun after the Great War, when the khaganate founded by Black Khamûl had fragmented, and tribe fought tribe across the east for generations. The Sagath proved kind to the Rayabi, though the arid, crumbling Ash Wall frowned upon them in the south. The mountains formed the northern fence of the _Kaalbak **_ the realm of the dark god, and were known to be haunted, both holy and dangerous, but the Sa, welling up from the foothills was untainted, and the grass grew lush about it.

The inner land, between the Sa and the young river Gath, was rich and fecund. Zeva remembered the trees lining the banks of the Gath, the shallows where children could splash on those days when the wind out of the east was hot and sleepy, the gold-grass days, the Rayabi called them.

Here, there were no such days. It was sunless, and and the sharp black walls of the fortress were polished with moisture or rimed with ice. When Zeva looked out, he saw only stone, or sometimes a glimpse of rocky outcroppings, scrubbed with tough shrubs and moss. Zeva felt his face crumple with distress, with the longing to be free.

_One night. I have one night._

And the nights were shorter now.

~~~

“No.” Elladan slammed his hands down on the long table as he came to his feet. “To do nothing? You must be mad to think it.” His eyes met his brother's. “You know, do you? what happened to our mother?”

“I know,” Vanimórë said. “I do know.”  
He shook his head. In Valinor, under the care of Estë, dwelt the woman whom had birthed he and his twin. He could not think of it without grief, that vision of her shown to him long ago, could never see her or call her, even in his mind, _mother._ She had been raped and tormented even as Celebrian, and what woman would own a child engendered through rape? It had taken her sanity and even death had been denied her until the end, her soul chained by Melkor's power to her burgeoning body. Only birth had released her to death. Would she ever be healed, even in the Gardens of Lórien? Some races of Men believed in paradise, a place not of the world, where there was no fear, no pain, no death. If such existed, it was not Valinor, where Melkor himself had walked, and where the Valar had abused their authority, condemning bright souls to the Everlasting Dark.

They had gathered in what had been Elrond's private room, he, Elgalad, Coldagnir, Maeglin, Aredhel and the twins. This chamber, unlike the spacious, bright study owned no balcony, only glazed windows in one wall, now closed fast. Here, private matters might be discussed away from keen or curious ears.

On his return to Imladris, Vanimórë had found Elgalad with Maeglin, and had listened while Maeglin spoke of himself, of Beleg, of Túrin. He made no excuses. Vanimórë pushed his hands into his hair and closed his eyes. Elgalad watched him, noting everything: the marks his clothes did not conceal, his hair and Coldagnir's wet, unbound. He said nothing but he knew, and it hurt him.

Vanimórë put an arm around the stiff shoulders, and could not explain. Nor did Elgalad ask him to, but the wound was burned into his eyes. For a moment Vanimórë's throat closed on self-loathing so bitter her tasted it like sour wine.

“I do not know how, or even if, this will affect matters.” He forced himself to speak. He had not looked for this, and even had he, it was not for him to forbid it or interfere now. “Thou wilt simply have to deal with whatever comes to pass.”

In the lamp-lit chamber, Vanimórë watched his own hands clench.  
“Thinks't thou that the Mouth of Sauron would not be dead now, were I permitted to act?” he demanded.

“You did not say _we_ were not permitted to act.” Elrohir had risen too. “And we have no Vilya now to protect the valley. This Malantur, he may know or guess where Imladris lies. We were besieged in the wars against Angmar, and we cannot allow this threat to grow in the north, even were there not atrocities involved.”

Aredhel turned her proud head, said, “How large is this creatures army?”

“I do not know, Lady,” Vanimórë admitted. “Angmar is guarded both from my sight and from Glorfindel's. But the Mouth has orcs; those who fled westward. Orcs breed as fast as men and are tougher. Half-orcs would be little different, I think. I agree now is the time to strike, but I think it will make no difference. There are wheels in motion three Ages old.”

“Whether or no,” Elladan said. “You brought us these women, escorted them from Dale and Laketown through the wild and the mountains to bring them to safety. You cannot just ignore others who are being tortured and used in Angmar!”

“ _I am not!_ ” Vanimórë hissed. “And damn thee, thou knowest it!”

“Thou d-didst not see h-him, when he learned of it.” Elgalad left his seat, came to stand beside him. “He h-hates himself _enough!_ ”

Silence. They were all looking at Elgalad, roused to indignation, the desire to protect him. Him. _My dear._  
Vanimórë reached up and touched the warmth of his cheek, bringing the grey eyes down to his with the full force of their pain and love.

“Do not worry,” he said. “I know how it must look.”

“But th-that is not h-how it _is,_ my l-lord. Canst thou not see?” he addressed them. “Can none of thee _see?_ ”

Elladan came around the table. “Elgalad – ” He laid a hand on his shoulder, then said to Vanimórë, “I do believe you. And yes, I do see. Forgive me. But _you_ must see, Vanimórë, that _we_ cannot ignore this. My brother and I are the Lords of Imladris now, and we have a duty.”

“And how large is thine own army?” Vanimórë asked. “Many went to New Cuiviénen.”

“Yes,” Elrohir conceded. “But not all. We have two hundred trained warriors in the valley now, others are in Lórien, and Mithlond. And then there are the Dúnedain who did not go south. There is a threat to them also. Estel will claim Arnor and – ”

“And will have an army.”

“There were many casualties in that war,” Elladan told him. “We were there. This is a time to rebuild, to rest. Or it should be.” His eyes met Elrohir's again, as if each gathered strength from the other. “Estel would bring an army north if he knew, but have you ever traveled Eriador? Some settlements of Men, the Breeland, the Shire, and Mithlond. The old kingdom has long been depopulated. It will be years before it is reclaimed, more before it returns to the Arnor of old. An army would have to carry everything it needed: forges, food, cooks, between the Gap of Rohan and Bree. And Gondor and Rohan need time to recover.”

Vanimórë bent his head. “All thou sayest is true,” he conceded, veteran of many wars. “And yet I know thee, thou sons of Elrond. I know thy prowess and fame and long hatred of the orcs. Thou wouldst do this alone, crush this poisonous flower before it blooms. But thou canst not invest Carn Dûm or break a way into it with two hundred warriors, or even two thousand.”

“No-one truly believed Frodo Baggins would be able to enter Mordor,” Elladan said softly.

“Sauron's attention was elsewhither. And the Hobbit did not go Barad-dûr to confront him.”

The twins said nothing, but their stances were martial.

“Cell,” Aredhel said quietly. “fears that if Carreg and Ness know what happened to their people, they will return to Angmar. What happened to Túrin's father?” Her eyes swept all of them, and she nodded. “We may all be kicking against the pricks of fate,” she added, lips thinning. “but that does not mean we must not kick.”

“Well, I am damned if _I_ will be ruled by fate,” Elrohir snapped.

Vanimórë laughed dryly. “So I said. But thou art not I. It is Glorfindel and I who may not interfere.”

“We must at least scout North to the borders of Angmar,” Elladan moved restlessly. “Summer is on our doorstep, and if there are orcs there – ”

“Cloud lies over Angmar,” Vanimórë told them. “But yes, the summer would be a better time to scout.”

“And Ness weds at the Solstice,” Aredhel mused. “He will take part in no long patrols before that. Carreg wishes to witness his brother's bonding.”

“I will go with thee.” They were the first words Coldagnir had spoken, and they were hesitant, as if he expected to be refused. “I suppose I can?” He looked at Vanimórë, who nodded.

“The Mouth may sense thee also, but I doubt he will know _what_ he senses, and it might be well for him to be concerned.”

 _How can we trust thee?_ Maeglin's eyes asked wordlessly, and Vanimórë saw in them the passionate desire to be trusted himself. The twins tolerated him for Aredhel's sake, spoke to him as if he were a stranger; only by seeing him as such could they live with one who had betrayed a whole kingdom, and attempted to murder their grandfather. The Imladrians, whether or not they admitted knowing who _Dûrion_ truly was, followed the brothers lead. And it was hard for the Peredhil, Vanimórë knew. It could be nothing else. They accepted him, Sauron's son, more readily than Maeglin, which must surely leave a bitter taste in his mouth. Yet Maeglin was no self-deceiver, nor had he tried to excuse his actions. He had done what he had done, died how he had died, and endured the Dark, only to return to a world where he was needed but unwanted, save by his mother. It was hardly a wonder that he had turned into Beleg's arms, and where that would lead, Vanimórë could not even begin to guess.  
He said now, “Coldagnir is sworn to Fëanor by the Blood-Kiss.”

The others knew it. Maeglin had not. His eyes widened.

“Fëanor invoked that?” he gripped the edge of the table. Aredhel glanced aside at him.

“Yes.” Coldagnir lifted a hand to his mouth. Color swept his face.

“A few of us only then,” Elrohir said, watching him. “And that soon.”

“I will ride with thee,” Vanimórë stood. “As far as I can.”

“How will you know that?” Elladan asked curiously.

“It feels like a rebuff. A very firm one.”  
He wondered if he could ride north and resist attempting to break into Angmar, knew that if he did he would find himself comprehensively foiled again. Elgalad was watching him, and he wanted to drop his face into the silver hair, close his eyes and forget everything for a time.

_We never forget. Forever unto forever._

~~~  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zeva was mentioned in The Power And The Passion ~ Cold And Ancient Shadows, Not by name, but the youth taken by the Mouth there was him.
> 
> * Qari - Seeing one/Wise one.  
> ** Kaalbak ~ Kaal is used in A Light in the East, where the people of the Sea of Rhun call Sauron Kaal. Kaalbak means the holy place of Kaal.


	17. ~ The Nadir of Night ~

  
~ On the fifth moondark, Zeva went to the kitchens to collect his evening dole of food: black bread, cold meat, ale slammed onto a platter in silence while about him women labored with pinched, shuttered faces. A group of men at the foot of the long table hunched over their meal and shot him odd, sneering looks, but said nothing. He took the plate back to the Lord's chambers, sat in an alcove where a slit in the wall showed only the mist-shrouded eastern tower, a thin black needle piercing the belly of the low clouds. He did not eat, but he dared not risk suspicion by veering from his interminable routine.  
  
He had been terrified to even think of escape lest the sorcerer know what was in his mind, and so had begun with tiny deceptions: hiding a little food somewhere. Later, a sharp knife was not returned to the kitchens. He carried it now, and following Jhitun's advice, had tried to fill his mind with mist, to make it as dull and soft as it had been before the spell sloughed away. And the Lord did not seem to know what he had done.  
  
Carn Dûm was enormous, and much was unused. There must be unguarded exits, but discovering them would take time did not have. If he absented himself without permission, was seen in places far from the Lord's rooms, if he showed any sign of independence all, the sorcerer would know he was no longer spell-enslaved. After the moondarks, when he was banished to the foot of the tower, he had tested the limits of what he might do, wandering idly to the door, whereat the guards called him back. When he went to the kitchens for food he lingered, looking for other doors and passages. He was always turned back. The Lord had occupied this one part of the fortress with his Men and Orcs, and they were not lax. It seemed, from their vigilance that the native people had tried to escape. Even if Zeva ran to escape the guards, where would he go? He might end up trapped, returned to the Lord, and after that there would be no more opportunities. His choices had dwindled. Perhaps some of the towers lead to other, smaller wards, to gates used by soldiers or chutes where waste was thrown. The Rayabi did not build castles, and Zeva felt helpless with ignorance, but he thought of the fortress in Mordor, and refused to believe an agile person could not escape from sprawling Carn Dûm.  
  
So. On the first level of this tower were two doors. The officers used one which connected by a passage to their rooms. Opposite was another door, which he had never seen opened, but surely lead to that slender black tower. He did not think any-one lodged there, but oil had been used on the hinges of the door. It took him a long time, standing and shivering, to summon the courage to try it, for if the soldiers did not use it, the sorcerer did. But he was gone for the night. Whatever he did required time, and he had not deviated from his pattern: absent all night, returning at dawn, alone through the following day, when he was renewed.  
  
 _I have one night. This night..._  
  
Days ago Zeva had been lead, without explanation, to another room. Even when the two orcs entered, he had not understood what was to happen. Orcs. His people called them the Death-eaters, for they consumed foul meats, and even their own kind. He had not been able to control his horror then, to pretend he was mindless, but the Lord, watching, had not seemed to notice, only laughed, dropping his breeches and working himself to release.  
  
 _No. No. No._  
  
That last blow to the cracked pot of his mind had shattered it, he knew. He had heard some-one screaming hoarsely, over and over until they ran out of breath. then there was a chasm in his memory. When he crawled out of it, he left something behind.  
  
 _Now. It must be now._  
  
Everything within him flinched when he at last set his hand on the iron ring, turning it cautiously lest it make a noise and bring the guards up. Slowly and without a sound, the door swung inward.  
  
The passage was dark. He shivered again, racking, convulsive, for there was another smell here, beside the dankness of moldering stone: old blood, burnt flesh. It pressed into his nostrils, spread through his mind in a fetid cloud.  
  
 _Death._  
  
 _There is death here._  
  
His hands were wet as they gripped wood as old and hard as stone, metal melting into it. Angmar was ancient and he did not have to be a shaman's son to know that terror lurked in its stones, both old terror and new. There were spirits here, who went past with a brush of hands like cobwebs, whispers in the dark. He would join them soon, if he did not escape.  
  
With a prayer to any god of any land that might have a scintilla of pity, and _knowing_ in his broken soul that there truly was no escape, he stepped inside the passage. He left the door open a little, enough to see, in the gloom, a faint bleed of torchlight.  
  
 _One night._  
  
By the time the next evening came, the Lord would be recovered. _No more. Never again. Nevernevernever._  
  
Somewhere beyond the clouds was a world where people rode under the sun, and children played in the shallows of bright rivers. Somewhere...  
  
The blackness disoriented him, and he trailed one hand against the wall lest he lose his balance. His breath sounded hectic, uneven and far too loud, and corridor seemed to have no end, to be sliding him down into a void. And then he saw light and froze, blinking. It came from the left; a torch or lamp, he thought. He strained to listen above the drumbeat of his heart, and could hear nothing.  
  
But he _felt._  
  
Moving like a mouse, he edged along the wall, and saw the door at the end of the passage was ajar. The light was coming from beyond, and the smell of old burning was stronger. Perspiration dampened him from head to feet in a prickling rush.  
  
How long he waited, he did not know. His hands were icy, a rivulet of sweat idled down his temples, and a scream built under his breastbone as he peered about the door. He found himself looking into a room. The floor and walls were black stone, completely round. Directly opposite him was another door.  
  
And there was a god in the chamber.  
  
It was a statue, Zeva realized after a blood-thundering moment, a naked man but taller than any man, massive and perfect, cast of bronze. The arms were outstretched as if showing or reaching for something. Long hair streamed in a cold metal cascade to his thighs, and the face held a pitiless, crushing beauty. About its brow was a crown, slender inward curling sword-thorns in which three huge gems burned. The eyes were set with glittering stones under long lashes of black steel.  
Their look was like death.  
  
A room of sacrifice. Blood was spattered on the floor, on the statue's feet, before which a round hole gaped, exhaling a charred midden stench.  
  
Horror spilled into Zeva's mind on a tide of pitch. He knew this crowned God. Even the shamans did not speak of Him by name, but he was stamped into the memory of the Eastern Men too long and too deeply to ever be forgotten. Lord of the World, God of the Night. And some called him the Great Enslaver.  
  
There were beings mightier and more terrible than the Lord Sorcerer. His attempts to emulate them were as a pale candle set against the midsummer sun. _This_ was the power, and it was more than a figure of metal. Zeva felt as if a far distant eye suddenly became aware of him, and its regard punched through his soul like a spear. He heard laughter like the fall of thunder on the mountains. Keening at the back of his throat, Zeva blundered into the further door, wrenching at the handle. It swung inward easily on oiled hinges. A torchlit stairwell lead down, and he threw himself forward before a beast-den stink of blood and waste buffeted him back. There were noises in it: coughing barks, shrieks and rabid laughter. Footsteps.  
  
He turned to run, back into the passage, down the tower steps, past the guards, out into the ward. He could kill himself before he were captured. The stolen knife would reach his heart. Perhaps his ancestors would forgive him for flouting the tribal laws. Perhaps his spirit would find its way east, to the Sagath, after, and not be condemned to wander Carn Dûm.  
  
As he whirled, the merciless regard of the darkest god clenched about him like a bronze fist.  
  
The door from whence he had fled opened wide. Zeva recognized the men who entered as the pair who escorted the Lord to and from his moondark rites. Between them they carried a thing, a body, lifeless, deformed. A huge head lolled, gaping mouth crammed with overgrown canine teeth, there was one arm withered small, like a dried root. Zeva's mouth formed soundless, repetitive denials.  
  
When the guards saw him, they dropped the body as if it were a sack. The horse-faced one grinned that same anticipatory expression. His companion's eyes merely flickered. In four long strides he was at the opposite door, blocking it, sword in hand.  
  
“The Lord Sorcerer will want to see you, slave.” His voice was calmly reasonable, his eyes dead, humanity bleached from them by his service to the dark. He pointed to the open door, jerked his head. The other man chuckled a breathy _Ehe, ehe,_ tongue sliding over his lips and said, “Yes, he will want to see you.” He rubbed his crotch, and it swelled under his hand. “Woke up did you? I suspected it, but the Lord has been busy. Now, he will root you until your arse is bleeding raw, and give you to the orcs after. Or me, maybe.”  
  
Zeva saw the little knife bury itself to the hilt the man's shoulder. There was no sense of shock, but he wondered where it had come from as the guard yelled and lunged. Zeva had to step back to avoid him. The pit sucked at his heels, and he balanced for a moment. And then he fell.  
  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
  
“Why were you never sent north when the Witch-king occupied Angmar?”  
  
Vanimórë ran his fingers down the horse's leg, then patted the muscled neck. It snorted amiably, wandering away to crop the grass.  
Twilight misted the land. Far to the west the last light showed opalescent against the rim of the world.  
  
“I was never ordered to come,” he told Elrohir. “Thou wert there, the both of thee.” He nodded toward Elladan.  
  
“Yes,” they said together, and Elladan continued, “We rode under Glorfindel. We saw him outface the servant of Sauron.” Their eyes met, held like a clasp, and Vanimórë thought of Eluréd and Elurín, their need for one another.  
  
“I would like to have seen that.” He passed a wineskin to Elgalad.  
  
“You would have been forced to fight him,” Elladan pointed out, settling himself into a crouch beside his twin.  
  
“Perhaps I was not _meant_ to meet him in battle.”  
  
“Ah,” Elrohir smiled a little, wry. “Of course.”  
  
Elgalad poured the wine into leather cups, handing one first to Aredhel, who smiled, but said nothing, listening. Beleg and Maeglin were taking the first watch, although the region north of the east-west road was quiet. They had passed a Dúnedain village five days ago, a neat, thriving place of stone and timber houses behind a high stockade of wood where men stood guard. They knew Elladan and Elrohir and welcomed them warmly, though the mood quickly became more serious when they learned of Angmar. It was far away, but the Dúnedain had long memories.  
  
The further north they rode, the wilder Eriador became. It was a sky-swept land of cold streams, birchwoods, and heather-grown tors that dropped to green valleys. Mountains pushed up on the horizon as the Ettenmoors gathered themselves into a last spur: Mount Gram, westernmost orc-hold of the Towers of Mist. As they traveled, Gram fell to the east. Before them lay Angmar.  
  
Vanimórë could feel the rebuttal of his presence, like a hand on the chest which would slowly increase its resistance until he could advance no further. The oath of dying Man made thousands of years ago. What were men, so afflicted by brief lives and disease, that they could effect such a thing? He wondered if he could even reach the borders of Angmar, and then about the Man himself, the child in Imladris, ( _The child I almost let die._ ) and when he would awaken to the knowledge of whom he was.  
  
“My lord?”  
  
He turned to Elgalad, smiling. There was his comfort, his light in the darkness.  
“Did he...the M-Mouth, sense thee before? Would h-he know thou art here? Thinks't thou he w-will feel Coldagnir?”  
  
“He would sense power, I imagine.” Vanimórë shrugged. “Since I cannot see his mind, I do not know. He may not know what power it is, or may think it the Valar.”  
  
“He would sense thee,” Aredhel said. “We do.”  
  
“Thou art Elven, Lady,” he said. “For all his sorcerous arts, Malantur is a Man.”  
  
“How did he become so powerful?” Her brows drew together.  
  
“I was not privy to it, but I imagine he bound his soul to Sauron's.”  
  
“And Sauron is gone.”  
  
“Yes.” He looked into the wine, a black pool in the night. “And without him he should begin to age, to lose his power. But he was with Sauron a very long time. It may be a slow process.” He sipped, swallowed. “He will perform the blood-rites, as Sauron did those times when his power was reduced. They can be effective, or they were for Sauron. For Malantur, I do not know. Perhaps he believes that because he survived his master's downfall, he will live forever.”  
  
“All the more reason not to let him sit there like a damned black spider.” Elladan's eyes caught the firelight like a cat's as he lifted his head. “If he fears nought, has no boundaries, he will perpetrate ever greater horrors.”  
  
 _Thou knowest what must come to pass,_ Vanimórë said into his mind, for Beleg was not so far away that his keen ears would not hear. _It is bound into the vow Túrin Turambar made long ago. The Mouth will not die before his appointed time. In the First Age, Melkor was the enemy. In this age, for Túrin, it is Malantur._  
  
The twins both came to their feet in one move, smooth as birds lifting from a branch to take flight.  
  
 _And nothing we do can aid those people imprisoned in Angmar?_ Elrohir demanded.  
  
 _I did not say that. And I damned well hope it is not so._  
  
 _But you think it: that we are impotent._  
They turned away, walking hip-to-hip into the dusk.  
  
Coldagnir said softly, “I want to try to go there.” His hair rippled, fire tamed to comfort. “I can feel the place. It is dark, as Angband was, but with far less power.”  
  
“Melkor is not there. Nor is Sauron. Just a shadow of their shadows.”  
  
“Some part of him is.” Coldagnir hugged his knees.  
  
“Yes, I suppose he would be,” Vanimórë said, thoughtful. “Odd though it is to think of it, he too is bound into this.” He finished the wine and rose, gesturing to Elgalad, who stepped apart with him. The fire diminished behind them.  
  
They had spoken little since he had returned to Imladris. What could he say? He felt no guilt, only the ceaseless _need_ for Elgalad, the ache that surmounted both love and desire, was formed of both, and stronger than either.  
  
“Th-thou art feeling it.” Elgalad stopped and faced him. “Here.” He laid a hand on Vanimórë's breast.  
  
 _Why thinks't thou of me, always of me?_  
“Yes. And each day it will grow until I have to turn aside.” He caught Elgalad's fingers and kissed them.  
  
“Do not l-let it come to that.” Elgalad whispered. “It hurt th-thee and to no purpose.”  
  
“I am sorry.” Vanimórë had to close his eyes. Elgalad's face was too bright with love for him to look upon.  
  
Elgalad freed his hand, only to cup Vanimórë's face with both. “Ah no. N-no do not do th-that to thyself, my l-lord.”  
  
“I am not thy lord. Dost thou not see that I am not more than thee, not better than thee?”  
  
“I have t-told thee: I see thee as thou art.”  
  
Vanimórë slowly dropped his brow against Elgalad's. There was peace here, and the heart of temptation in excruciating juxtaposition.  
  
“What wilt thou do?” he asked, feeling his own breathing and Elgalad's quicken.  
  
“I feel I should g-go on with th-them. Elladan and Elrohir are friends.”  
  
Vanimórë's arms locked around Elgalad, jerked him close. They were both hard, and a frisson spiked his body. Fire, snowmelt, hot wine. Through it, teeth clenched, he said, “There could be danger. Malantur would be foolish indeed if he did not set watch at the borders.”  
  
~~~  
  
Coldagnir looked up at the stars. He knew what they were, knew what he was. Lowering his head, he gazed north. It was darker there, shadowed.  
  
 _Not Melkor, not Gothmog, but no less evil. There are too few of us, if Vanimórë cannot use power. And I do not think I can. Not to kill Malantur. But we need to know..._  
  
The fire was behind him. Ahead, leagues of dark land rolled north to the ice.  
  
He melted into his true being. Fire could be as gigantic as the Sun or as small as a candle flame, and what he was, once had been, was swift as light. He could do this, for Vanimórë and his own pain that had taken Coldagnir to the _Anguish,_ for Elgalad and his astonishing and beautiful love. For the others who, few as they were, would walk into an enemy's land.  
  
The night sparkled about Coldagnir, vibrant with life supported by Arda's ponderous, titanic spin and the golden roar of the vanished sun. There was no wind-rush as he traveled, only the skim of land beneath, as it flattened to the tundra and the everlasting cold at the top of the world. The Mountains of Angmar frowned at the skirts of the Northern Waste, buried in cloud, lashed by frigid winds.  
  
He was a tiny mote of light flying up black rocks where snow still lay in crevices. But Carn Dûm itself _steamed_ , smokes rising from vents in the rock as if a furnace burned at the castle's roots. It did not seem large to one who had known Melkor's mighty fortresses, but for something made by the hands of Men, it was huge, a thorny growth of towers wreathing the mountain's icy flank.  
  
“ _Some part of Melkor is there,_ ” he had told Vanimórë, knowing it, he whom had been Melkor's slave from before Men or Elves walked on Arda. And it was here. _Here._ A narrow tower rising above the others. Not far from the base were horizontal openings, the stonework slanting inward, as if to permit air but little light.  
  
 _Here._  
  
Coldagnir whirled up like a spark, and in.  
  
It was a huge fire-pit. Coldagnir flashed through the hole above, into the chamber of worship. He saw, and pulsed at the sight of the statue, at its sentience, unliving but horribly aware. He felt a blink of recognition from a distance that could not be measured, and flinched.  
 _A conduit._  
Melkor was not truly here, but belief and blood provided him with some tenuous link from the Void. Strange, for Melkor had not needed blood, but blood represented the energy of life. Was that what he craved, shut out in the Night?  
  
 _Could he possess a Mortal? Is that what this Malantur is attempting to do? Melkor's might would blast him to cinders!_  
  
A soundless wail cut across Coldagnir's consciousness like a blade. Startled out of fear and thought, he sped back down into the fire-pit.  
  
Once the furnace had been raised on a platform above the air-shafts, but that had rusted long ago, and the accumulation of blown earth, old slag, ash and damp were not conducive to an effective blaze. Heather, coal and hot animal fat were used to feed the fires, Coldagnir saw, and the result was a poor, sluggish burning that soon failed. The bodies thrown here were more charred than consumed, and they were unsettlingly... _wrong._ All save one: A youth, fallen on dried brush and cold ash, the air knocked from his lungs. He was trying desperately to breathe, and his mind was screaming, white and blood-red with horror.  
  
He reminded Coldagnir of Vanimórë, young in Angband, the same terror, the same helplessness.  
And he saw Coldagnir. He should not have been able to, but so close to madness, to death, somehow, he saw.  
  
Above, the hole through which the sacrifices and fuel were dropped yawned, and a man's face appeared, hard and brutal. He vanished and a torch appeared which the man let drop onto the fat-splashed heather, onto the youth – and the spark that was a being of fire.  
  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
  
“What is that?” Aredhel snapped.  
  
Vanimórë and Elgalad turned, walking to her side. The Peredhil appeared out of the dark, noiseless as wraiths. Aredhel did not look at them. She was staring northward. “A light.” She pointed. “It just appeared.”  
  
It was very far away, like a beacon-fire lit in the mountains.  
  
“I cannot see further,” Vanimórë said in frustration. “A fire.”  
  
“Carn Dûm?” Elladan asked, as Beleg and Maeglin converged on them from opposite directions, looking back over their shoulders.  
  
“It is high enough, and far enough west.”  
  
“Have we been seen?” Maeglin asked.  
  
Elrohir shook his head, still gazing. “There is no-one out here, Vanimórë said.”  
  
“No-one beyond Angmar's borders,” Vanimórë murmured. “Few orcs in Gram. Unless Malantur has other ways of watching...”  
  
The night was so quiet that the noise, the low rolling _boom_ sounded like thunder coming down from the dark mountains, drumming across the land. Then the sky over shrouded Carn Dûm flared and flickered with light. A storm was breaking there.  
  
Elgalad laid a hand on Vanimórë's arm. “C-Coldagnir is gone,” he said.  
  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
  
The pillar of white flame roared upward into the chamber of sacrifice. It caught the soldier in a sheet of fury. The bronze statue began to drip and run like water. And the top of the tower exploded. Fire speared into the clouds and lightning answered it. No-one save Coldagnir saw the stone edifice collapse, run like a candle, but Carn Dûm was old and strong, and the fall of that one tower would not bring down the rest. But for the moment, and for Coldagnir, that one was enough.  
  
  
  
~~~ 


	18. ~ Kissing the Fire ~

~ The Northern sky burned like the wrath of rubies. It seemed that for an instant, the weary clouds that overhung Angmar were pierced by a lance of solid white light. They broke and reeled, gouting thunder.

“What in the Hells is happening?” Maeglin's demand sounded slapped to breathlessness.

Vanimórë said, “Coldagnir,” and silently, _Nemrúshkeraz, come back._

Fire rippled across his mind as Coldagnir turned on the aetheric winds toward his call.  
 _He was too close._ A flare of fierce, frightened loathing. _I felt...I_ saw –

 _Nemrúshkeraz._ Vanimórë commanded, irrefusable. _Return. We need to speak of this._

 _It was_ Him.

 _I know._ Power snarled in his blood, and every sense in him screamed warning, even now, even with what he had become.  
 _Come back._

~~~

Thunder. So much more than sound; a god's hammer wielded against the sky which split asunder under the impact, bleaching the night. The scream of winds hurled against stone and shredded into angry gusts. Somewhere the roar of storm-waters sluicing through cold gullies.  
The world tilted, fell away into night.

A scatter of polished stones, dappled green, blue, smokey amber, white.  
Eyes of stone glittering, faceted into colorless life. _Thou art nothing,_ they said. _Thou art made to be used, broken and despised._

Arms of bronze reached out to pull him into an eternity of horror.

He fell.  
Pain exploded through his body. He tried to scream, and there was no air. Darkness rising.  
And then there was fire, loose rivers of hair, seared-metal eyes. A god of flame. His face was sorrowful; there was even a trace of fear there, human on those inhuman features. He reached out his arms, drew Zeva into them as he burned, as he died...

 _Thank-you,_ he thought.

~~~

When the running fire across the land stopped, the power sank into flesh, eyes, hair, leaving the afterglow. Coldagnir held out the lifeless body that lay across his arms.

“A temple to Melkor.” He spoke as though his mouth were full of rot. “Malantur is sacrificing to him. The boy was in the fire-pit.”  
He knelt beside a bedroll, careful as a mother laying her firstborn child to sleep. There was nothing they could do, but because the appeal in Coldagnir's voice and eyes brooked no denial, Elladan came forward. He unlaced the youth's shirt, bent his head to the exposed chest, listening for the heartbeat, feeling for the pulse in his wrist as if he expected to find one. Slowly he straightened, catching back the bootless, unnecessary words.

Coldagnir shook his head slowly from side to side, definite as the tolling of a bell. The wind surged from the north, its touch ignited his hair.  
“The fire is _mine,_ ” he both challenged and pleaded. “I protected him. He...he...”

“Thou didst try,” Vanimórë said through ashes. His own impotence sneered, daring him to do anything useful. “Do not take this burden on thyself.”

Tears shone molten red on Coldagnir's cheeks. “ _No,_ ” he choked, his face a wilderness of peril and despair. “ _No,_ because I could do nought save against a statue, and _no_ because I have killed by fire too often, and _no,_ because he was...he was terrified. How could I not save one one boy, one _child_ from _myself?_ ”  
He dropped to his knees, hair falling over his face, the limp body, the earth, ribbons of crimson fire that looked as if they should sear the grass black.

“He was like thee, in Angband.”

Vanimórë spun away, shutting his eyes against the desolation in Coldagnir's voice. He saw the similarities, but whatever powers he had been given did not reach beyond the veil of death.

“I should have done something!” the Balrog flung back his head, loosed a string of glass-edged Valarin.“Thou knowest why I did not, what I was then. And I was afraid of Melkor, of Gothmog! I still am!” _Ah, Vanimórë, I still am!_  
He came to his feet, a cynosure lit by red-gold, white and black. There were two beings within him, the beautiful Maia, and something that waited behind and within the skin, eyes of venom dark-burning.  
“ _Do not tell me he is dead!_ ”

Lightning forked across the sky clear from Carn Dûm and struck him to a furnace, throwing the Elves back in instinctive reaction. Vanimórë did not move. He held Coldagnir's eyes, made his will as steel hooks.  
 _No. Stay with us._  
The air sang with potency; Dana's vast presence under his feet, _Earthblood._ Glorfindel's furious golden aura, _Sunstorm,_ and another that Vanimórë felt with a sense of shock. Fëanor, bound to Coldagnir by the Blood-kiss, was the inconceivable power that raged in the heart of every star.

“My lord.” Elgalad's voice fell like silk between their locked stares. Some-one cried in warning, “Elgalad, _no!_ ”

 _So near._ He had not known how terribly near, had dwelt on the Earth too long. Destroying Melkor's statue ultimately achieved nothing; was a gesture of defiance. As the bronze melted, he had heard _laughter,_ mocking, corrosive, and what he had glimpsed had hammered dread into his soul.

_Thou wilt not, thou wilt not..._

He threw back his head and screamed at the storm. It answered in a concussion that slapped the fire to scattering cinders.

A haze of silver washed over his consciousness, hands settled each side of his face, cool as water. The touch melted through him, skin, sinew, bone, and blood. Elgalad's eyes met his. The fire sank harmlessly into their pellucid depths.

 _Nemrúshkeraz._ His voice came like spring.

The kiss was beauty. It drew him from the edge of the the abyss, and into glory. Exposed, he recoiled from the overwhelming Love. It was too immense. He had turned his back upon it, unhomed himself, and embraced darkness because there was nothing else he could do, and was too fearful to flee it.

Mighty argent wings enfolded his soul and held him.

  
Vanimórë saw Elgalad reach through the coruscating power, hold Coldagnir's face in both hands and kiss him lingeringly, kissed him as he had kissed Vanimórë in Imladris, after his extremity of rage and guilt. Something sounded in his mind, a note of music vaster than the world, older than time, and though he fought to understand, to see beyond its shining thunder, he could not.  
Coldagnir plunged to the grass gasping, black fire quenched. Elgalad went down with him, one hand drawing tenderly through his hair, the other tracing down his cheek, his breast, to rest on the body of the youth. The Maia's tears fell upon the boy's still face.  
Whose eyelids flickered, blinked. He began to cough, and then dreadfully, to scream.  
All of them, Vanimórë not the least, were held in a fist of astonishment, and then as one, they moved.

~~~

He emerged from the dream slowly as an exhausted swimmer pulling himself from a river. Warmth soaked into his muscles, deep into the aches there, soothing them so that he could not bring himself to move. It seemed he had been cold for so long. He did not want to wake. Demons crouched beyond his closed eyelids.

_No._

_Zeva._

_No._

The pit. The fire. The sorcerer. The orcs. The _thing_ in the tower, neither man nor orc but a twisted mockery of both. The telic force within the bronze statue.

_Zeva._

Air tore into his lungs. He coughed, gulped, found the breath he needed to scream.  
Arms came about him. He struggled uselessly, sobbing.

 _Peace._ The voice was sweet, but with an force limning it that poured wild light through his veins. _Thou art safe._ The accent fell strangely, each word formed of crossed swords, precise and hard.  
 _Rest now._

~~~

“Torn muscles, some bruising,” Vanimórë told them. “But he is young. He will mend.”

“He was dead,” Elrohir said flat, quiet. “I have seen enough death to know it.”

“So have I.”

“What did you say to him?” Elladan turned to Elgalad.

“N-nothing.” Elgalad sounded bewildered. “I w-was thinking that h-he should ask Eru to h-help him. I feared for h-him. There was so m-much guilt.” His eyes came up to Vanimórë's, and he flushed. “I k-kissed him because...b-because.”

 _Because thou canst not turn away from those in need. And perhaps thou didst want to to kiss him._  
There was nothing hidden in Elgalad, no shadow-grown crevices where revenge and hatred lurked; the aching, frustrated need, the love, blazed as brightly as Coldagnir's fire, ripping at Vanimórë's soul like the thorns of an exquisite rose that could not be picked without blood. Elgalad's blood.

“My dear,” he said. “I feared for him too.” He drew Elgalad close, held him tightly for a moment, disturbed at what he had heard and sensed. “I feared for _thee._ ” Yet he had not prevented Elgalad, pulled him back, not even protested.  
 _Why not?_

“He w-would not have harmed m-me,” Elgalad murmured into his throat, his lips heating Vanimórë's blood. Not the faintest scintilla of doubt pricked his words.

“Mayhap Eru did help him,” Beleg said calmly, from close by.

“We were taught that Eru does not intervene directly,” Aredhel frowned. “But much of what we were taught was lies.”

“We unbegotten prayed to Eru and the Mother,” Beleg answered the question in her tone. “Even in Doriath we did so. Who would a Maia pray to but Eru alone?”

“Perhaps he was not dead,” Elladan offered. “There are times that people do die for a short while, but return to life. We have seen such things, though rarely.”

“Yes,” Elrohir agreed, feeding a fresh fire. “Their heart stops for a while. It truly stops; it is not just faint. There is no pulse at all. The Dúnedain call it Death-Dreaming.”

“Yes, I have seen it,” Vanimórë agreed. “It is possible.” And it was possible. “He must have been terrified. He was Malantur's slave.” It had poured forth in a flood of slime and horror from the youth's mind, all of it; the degradation, the pain, the whipped fear.

“Eru have pity,” Beleg gazed at the boy. He had Elgalad's eyes, all clear compassion. “He is so young. He is not Adan, is he?”

“Eastern, from the Sagath, north of Mordor. And oddly enough, I have seen him before.”

“He fought for Mordor.” Elladan frowned, met his brothers eyes.

“Many people did,” Vanimórë returned levelly. “Most were no more evil than any man, but they knew nothing else. The West was their enemy. They have their own tales of Gondor and the Elves. Thou wouldst be surprised at some of them. This boy: I was a guest of his tribe two years before the battle of the Morannon. If he carries even seventeen summers I would be surprised.”

“It was an observation, not an accusation.”

“I know.” Vanimórë gazed into the north wind then walked across to Coldagnir, who was listening in silence, and went down in a hunter's crouch beside the sleeping youth.

“What happened?”

“I do not know.” His face was strange, washed by power and confusion. “I do _not_ know,” he reiterated, his eyes flicking aside to where Elgalad stood. “There was love, and the Music.”

“I heard it.” Vanimórë beckoned to Elgalad, who came to him. “Didst thou, my dear?”

“There w-was something...” The rain-grey eyes looked inward, searching. “I scarce r-remember.”

“I did not do _this,_ ” Coldagnir said staring at him. “I killed him.”

“If thou hadst killed him there would be nothing left of him. I felt the force of thy burning.” Vanimórë drew another blanket over the boy's relaxed form. “His heart stopped with sheer fright, I think.”

“But I did not have the power to bring him back.”

_Nor did I. The Music..._

“Thou hast saved him from Carn Dûm, from Malantur,” he said. “He rests. Now, I need thee to talk to us of what thou didst see and feel there. Come.”

Reluctantly, Coldagnir rose. He glanced at Elgalad, who smiled, quiet and luminous.  
“I w-will stay with h-him.”

“Thou,” Coldagnir whispered, perplexity drawing his brows together. He raised a hand, dropped it as if he did not know what to do. “I did not see much.” He seemed to be sifting his words carefully, not wanting to use any of them, but compelled to. “I went to where I felt him, Melkor.”

“You truly sensed his presence?” Elladan demanded, but softly for the sleeping boy. “He _cannot_ return from the Void. He is shut out until the end of days, or so we have always been told.”

“Is he not?” Elrohir asked. “I think, I truly do, that this is something we need to know.”

“I fled the destruction of Angband and hid, both from Melkor and the Valar,” Coldagnir said. “I did not know what happened until I woke, and was told of it by Glorfindel. If Melkor were here, in body, I would feel it. I think all of thee would.”

“We would,” Maeglin said, shoulders strained with abhorrence.

“No, he is not here physically.” Vanimórë's heart lurched with acid hate at the thought. “But Glorfindel and I feel – _know_ – that in some ways he _is_ here, and bound to Túrin's vow. And there is something that occurs to me. The Grey Mountains and the mountains of Angmar are all that are left of the Ered Engrim.”  
Angband. Destroyed, buried, a hidden scar in the north of the world. He felt its emanations like a slow seep of poison.

“Malantur is offering blood sacrifice to him, and using his powers to try and hasten the growing of his half-orcs.” Coldagnir's whole body shuddered. “There was a creature in the room, deformed.”

“That thing we found,” Aredhel exclaimed, her face twisting with disdain, perhaps pity.

“And he is doing more than that.” Behind the words lay a world of screaming.

“He cannot do that,” Vanimórë stated. “I do not think it possible.”

“Do not think what is not possible?” Beleg asked.

They looked at one another, god and demi-god, and Vanimórë said into the waiting silence, “He may be trying to have Morgoth's spirit possess him.”

Maeglin cursed. Elgalad's eyes caught the firelight like water as he raised his head.

“What did you feel?” Elrohir asked Coldagnir. “What exactly did you feel?”

Coldagnir thrust back his hair, held it away from his face.  
“Him. Them.” He inhaled deeply. “I do not _know_ the Void. Those Ages when Melkor was imprisoned by the Valar, he felt closer somehow, though I did not know Valinor either. After I woke, I thought of Melkor, of Gothmog, the others as further away than the stars.” He let his hair fall. “In Carn Dûm, when I saw his statue, it was as if reality...parted, and revealed him standing before me, close enough to touch. I am afraid,” he confessed, standing in muted glory. “I cannot...will not face them again. He saw me. He knew me. They are all there. All of them. Waiting, always waiting for some-one to open the door with blood.”

The air turned febrile. Coldagnir wrapped his arms about himself, and venomous snakes crawled through Vanimórë's veins.

~~~

 

Elgalad, created by the wonderful Esteliel, on Poser. {{{A huge hugs to her.}}}  


  
~~~


	19. ~ Beyond Impossibilities ~

~ “Sauron was never stupid enough to try such a thing,” Vanimórë said almost to himself.

“Malantur cannot be permitted to even attempt it,” Elrohir snapped, and swore. “No-one, _no-one_ would dare such a thing.” He groped for words, stupefied. “Surely we would know had it been tried before, and was successful. There would have been avatars of Morgoth Bauglir bestriding the world !”

“I think it has been tried.” Vanimórë paced a circle around the fire. “I have seen so-called possession. Usually it is not true possession, merely narcotics and hysteria, but there have been times when a priest or shaman has been found dead, or gone mad. It may be that they opened the door to something too powerful for them. There were many lesser evils in the world under Melkor.”

“Yes.” Beleg affirmed quietly. “We felt them, the shadows within the shadows above Cuiviénen.” Maeglin looked at him starkly, as if shamed that he should have allied with the master of those shadows.

“But Melkor?” Vanimórë raised his head, fixed his eyes on the violent sky over Angmar “As well believe a glass goblet would hold lava. There are very few who could carry his spirit. The Mouth is not one of them, strong though he is. But if he is not very careful – and I believe he has gone beyond care or sanity – he is going to invite something in that he cannot control.”  
The fire huddled into itself, pressed down by shadows. Coldagnir, his face open to fear, drew at the flames like harp-strings. They roused, and still the night's maw gaped about them, more than night now, a malefic presence.

“Then what do we do?” Maeglin demanded, his clear voice cutting into it. “He must be stopped. I agree we cannot invest Angmar, and so he must be drawn out.”

“Yes,” Vanimórë concurred. “But he will have felt Coldagnir's power, and it will have frightened him. He will not risk his unnatural life in battle. I do not know what will bring him forth.”

No-one spoke. The storm was almost upon them now, and Vanimórë opened himself to it angrily, pushing it back with a thought to writhe over Angmar. The dusk flowed in, drew breath, sighed softly. He unstoppered a wineskin and poured into the leather cups, then took one to Elgalad and sat down beside him. The boy – he was scarce more – slept deeply, his demons shut away, at least for now.  
Coldagnir came and knelt, emotions like cloud shadows passing over his face.  
“I had forgotten,” he whispered. “What it was to be Ainu. Does that sound foolish?”

“How can I tell? I am not Ainu.”

“No, thou art more.”

Vanimórë shrugged impatiently. “It seems there are more things I cannot do, than those I can, so what matters it?”  
Elgalad looked from one to the other, slim brows drawn. Coldagnir shook his head.  
“Utumno was real.” His voice flinched. “Angband was real. Too real. I could not think of the Timeless Halls. Thou,” he said to Elgalad. “thou didst take me there.”

Elgalad's face stilled like water under the touch of frost. Vanimórë said, striving for comprehension, “How?”

“Love.” Coldagnir hesitated, then, “It is so powerful. I had forgotten that also.”

“I did naught.” Elgalad stirred. “I did not w-want thee to d-despair. Knowest thou w-what happened, my l-lord?”

“I heard the Music, a note of the Great Music.” Vanimórë rose and stretched out his hand to Elgalad. “Come. Coldagnir, we will speak more of this soon, to Glorfindel and to Dana. I cannot say to thee, _fear not,_ yet I say it.” He leaned and kissed the Balrog's brow.

Elgalad slipped an arm about Vanimórë's waist as they walked away from the camp. The storm still cracked and echoed over Angmar, but here it was still. The camp-fire seemed far away when they halted.

“We will return to Imladris as soon as we can,” Vanimórë said. “There is no more we can do here, at least nothing I am permitted to do. And the boy needs to recover there.”

“Thou didst say to Coldagnir, _Do not take this burden on thyself,_ and so I say t-to thee. It is d-decreed that thou may do n-nought, is it not?”  
Elgalad turned to him. His hair had come loose, and fell in disorder, framing his features as silver frames an exquisite pearl. No wonder Coldagnir had not hurt him, that he accepted the perfect offering of love, and what then? Had it allowed him to feel Eru, to beg for his aid? There was no other explanation. A thought, elusive as a darting fish, flicked across Vanimórë's mind, and eluded him, leaving only the scent of tears.

“What didst thou see, when Coldagnir burned here?” he asked, lifting the heavy hair away from Elgalad's face.

“I saw wh-what I see in thee, d-dear lord.” The long lashes fluttered at the touch of his fingers, drifting shut in a momentary spasm of pleasure that pooled and lay like hot lead in Vanimórë's loins. “Guilt. Self-loathing. Regret. H-hate.”

Elgalad's lips parted under the sudden kiss, sliding one long leg up to rub his own hardness against Vanimórë's; shameless and so dangerous. _Take me,_ he offered, and Vanimórë was racked by need. This was what Coldagnir had felt, what had grounded and dissipated that destructive power.  
He gasped even as Coldagnir had when he drew away, then buried his face in the great spill of silver hair, and closed his eyes.  
Within him, a lost child sat in a wormhole of stone, and wept, longing for the benison of love. Elgalad's arms locked around him.

~~~

He walked the pre-dawn, its light and lucent grey muting all colors. The air was warm, still under a placid covering of cloud. Passing grouped pavilions he heard at times, soft voices entwining in rivers of words, the gasps and involuntary cries of love, music. His feet passed over grass, shaped stone, silent.

A slender wall rose before him and he placed a hand on it, feeling the weight settling into the earth, encouraging it to settle a little more firmly. He walked through a doorway, wide unfinished rooms, and paused to trace the sinuous lines of gems, melted and frozen into lines and curves, patterns within patterns.

Dawn smudged the east pale as he walked from the palace toward the encampment that lay to the south. The royal dorsal flying from the largest pavilion caught a ruffle of wind and snapped out in silken flame. Other tents spread about in a pattern of hierarchy nigh as old as the first Cuiviénen. It was a city in itself, of oiled cloth and bright colors, and few were stirring as yet, minds relaxed, drifting on the edge of dream or soaked with pleasure. He turned to look west. Very far away, Coldagnir had flamed into power. He and Glorfindel had felt it, and the desperation and danger that followed on its heels. Vanimórë had reached out to touch and link with them, sharing what the Balrog had seen and done in Carn Dûm.

Melkor.

The name had taken Fëanor out into the mild night like a hunter.

 _It is not the same,_ Dana had joined them. _There are similarities. But I was always of the Earth. I am the Earth. Melkor came from Outside._

 _Melkor cannot easily return,_ Glorfindel agreed with Vanimórë. _As for this possession of the soul, the mind. We know it can happen, but a spirit such as Melkor's would burn the vessel that housed it._

 _Malantur was always ambitious._ Vanimórë's mind-voice was dry, rich, somber. _Melkor will not be able to fit through any door Malantur opens, but there are other things in the Void._

The guards on their peaceful night-duty bowed as he passed into the pavilion. Both outer chambers were empty, dark. The great table neatly tidied. A dead fume of incense hung in the air.

Fëanor drew back the partition that gave privacy to the bed-place. A lamp, all but shrouded, cast a dim glow over the two sleepers, one with his head on the other's chest. Both were still clothed, as if they had talked until sleep claimed them.

He regarded them for a long moment, excluded from this comfort, as if it was an understood fact that he did not require such a thing, and could not offer it, at least not to these two. Slowly, he knelt, then leaned to kiss their still mouths.  
“I hope I stalk thy dreams,” he whispered lovingly. “For I will not release thee.”

~~~

 _Fire. Wind. Music. The damp, hot-silk feel of skin on skin, wrestling in a battle whose ending they already knew, and one which they would engage in over and over. Fragments of memory lit his memories like sheet-lightning: hair spilling on his flesh, lips drinking and demanding, the arch of a neck thrown back in ecstasy, firelight limning the curve of cheekbone and jaw. And through it all, the terrible glory of sex; wanton, feral. There could never be enough, never enough of_ him...

He came awake on a startled breath, looked into the diamondfire eyes. Fëanor's words echoed in his mind.

“Thy wish is granted,” Fingolfin murmured, and Fëanor smiled that blazing, unexpected smile that could shatter the heart.  
“There is news from the North,” he said. “I wish to speak with thee.”

Maglor stirred, roused from sleep by his father's presence. His waking face was vulnerable, the unconcealed longing brutal as a bruise. Fingolfin could not bear to see it. Maglor was pinned by the unmerciful regard of his father as surely as a prisoner in a black cell is caught by a lantern shone on his face. Fëanor would not accept mendacity, saw through it like crystal, and Maglor's obdurate struggle with his desires drove him to avoid his father, took him to Tindómion, who waged his own perverse and passionate war against Gil-galad – and sometimes he came to Fingolfin.

They did not speak of it, had not since the winter, both knowing why they could seek one another's company and not Fëanor's, why, so very rarely, they stepped across the unmarked boundaries they had erected. But never had they been driven as far and as hard as Fëanor drove them.

 _Fëanor!_ Fingolfin snapped, to give Maglor time to arm himself against the onslaught. “What happens in the North?”

“Aredhel is not hurt.” Fëanor said clasping their arms.

“Then what?”

They had spoken of the situation in Angmar, knowing there was nothing they could do, but Fingolfin's daughter lived in Imladris, which made their concern very personal. No-one ever mentioned her son.  
Fëanor told them. Fingolfin's muscles tightened, and his heart rose in his throat.

“I think there is little chance of this Malantur being able to truly summon Morgoth's spirit,” Fëanor ended. “Both Vanimórë and Glorfindel believe no human body or mind could contain it. But would Melkor need a vessel, I wonder, or as we have been told of Sauron, could he build himself one, if he found a way back?”

Maglor drew away, fully uncovering the lamp. The crystals, behind amber-tinted glass, flowered light into the room.

“ _Adar,_ ” he said. “No.”

“The battle betwixt myself and Morgoth is not ended. My time will come.”

“Wilt thou orphan us again, father?” Maglor asked, intense as a dagger. “Uncle, wilt thou orphan thine own children again?”

“No,” Fëanor vowed, and Fingolfin saw his face soften to peerless beauty. He took Maglor's face in both hands. “Never.”

_And there is the love. If he did not love so deeply, neither would we._

Maglor closed his eyes. A frantic pulse beat under his white flesh. It seemed as if he would say something, but then abruptly he wrenched away, walked out. Fingolfin watched him go.  
“I too, doubt Morgoth can return in such a way,” he said. “But nonetheless, there will be danger.”

“We knew there would be.”

Fingolfin let out a breath. “I wanted her to be safe.” A door opened into the past. There were so many doors, and all lead to grief. “I asked her if she loved me, to go with Turgon. And she did. Had I not – ”

“Enough,” Fëanor took him by the shoulders. “Glorfindel will not let Aredhel die. But thou shouldst be aware of what may happen there.”

Fingolfin shook himself away from the temptation pouring through that hard grip and poured water from a ewer, laving his hands and face.

“What dost thou talk of, my son and thee?”

He heard the sensuous smile in the question, picked up a folded towel and dried himself unhurriedly.  
“We talk of many things.”

He was so good at dissembling, thought Fëanor appreciatively; they had both practiced it for long enough. Draping the towel, Fingolfin continued, “At Mithrim we spoke a great deal.”

Both Fingolfin and Maglor remembered Nost-na-Lothion, Fëanor knew. Their attempts to pretend nothing had happened were too obvious, as was the feigned nonchalance they adopted when in his presence, especially before others. And yet, even to him, that night had been gathered and snipped from the cloth of their lives, something separate from it, a dream that no matter how real and vivid it felt, was still a dream.

“Of course,” Glorfindel had said, bitterness stamped into in his voice, as it had been since the day Legolas rode to the Iathrim. “We are not used to such freedom. Not even thou. And there will still be guilt for some, confusion for others. It will take time before our minds are truly free of the laws imposed on them for so long, uncle. It feels like a dream because we have never lived it.”  
He did not need to say that Legolas had.

“I think I am jealous,” Fëanor said now. “For he speaks little to me.”

Fingolfin's eyes narrowed. He strode past, into the larger room beyond.  
 _Dost thou expect it?_

Too many listening ears. They had become used to discussing private matters this way.

_I am his father._

_If thou wert_ only _his father, he would speak with thee gladly._

_And yet, he comes to thee._

Fingolfin stood at the table, head bent, hands spread on it, and sighed.  
 _Come outside,_ he said.

Dawn breathed over the encampment. The grey sky was a high roof above their heads as they walked down toward Fingolfin's mansion, pearl colored and immense even in its incompleteness. A trio of women hastened past, swirling to bow before running toward the shore.

 _Some things,_ Fingolfin strode on. _can never be spoken of or openly admitted. I do not speak of myself. Have I not admitted, have I not spoken? Maglor is different._

Fëanor tipped back his head, his eyes following the line of the outer wall upward.  
 _He seeks_ thee.  
And it hurt that they, his greatest loves, would only come to him when they could affect ignorance after, pretend nothing had not happened.  
Yet they loved him. As he had told Glorfindel, his love was matched, unwillingly, sinfully, magnificently.

 _I am not thee,_ Fingolfin said. _Maglor is not thee. There are some things we cannot look directly at, Fëanor, though we long to, and so we look aside, at a reflection._

Fëanor laughed, said aloud, “Perhaps my will is less strong then, for I cannot.”

Fingolfin climbed the steps that lead up to the great entrance, and into the roofless chamber. _No. Thou_ wilt _not._  
Following him, catching his arm, Fëanor arrested his half-brother's progress. Fingolfin's profile was still and hard. He might have been the statue that had once stood in the palace of Tirion. Finwë had carved each of his sons when they were children, prophesying in marble what they would become in full maturity. And there had been foreshadowings in their faces, Fëanor thought. He had not seen it then, though when Fingolfin's likeness was placed in the hall, he had been compelled to study it. His half-brother was yet a child, and of no interest to him, but what he _would be_ could not but intrigue: proud, steely beauty, head lifted high on a graceful neck, as if he wore a crown, or faced some insurmountable doom. But there was something in the eyes, as if they gazed into a beloved face, the haven of his heart against which even doom would break in vain. Fëanor had wondered, and watched the child become a youth, become the man. Later, he knew whose heart was held in the blue-white eyes, but not the doom. He thought of the bronze statue Coldagnir had seen, lifeless yet seething with awareness, and kissed the high plane of Fingolfin's cheek, a talisman against the future.

“Will not, he agreed. “And I _will not_ tell thee that I am sorry,”

His half brother's face stirred into a strange smile. “I did not expect an apology.”

“No, thou knowest me too well.”

“I will hold my own court on Tarnin Austa.”

“Wilt thou?”

“When thou art reasonable, I am suspicious.” Fingolfin looked straight at him.

Fëanor playfully flirted his lashes. “My dear brother, it makes no difference where thou doth celebrate Tarnin Austa, but these maneuverings are enjoyable.”

“In this world, as in the old one, what thou desirest is impossible.”

“And yet,” he smiled, rocking his hips into Fingolfin's. “There was _Nost-na-Lothion._ ”

Fingolfin turned his face aside, presenting the glassy beauty of his profile again, though his loins hardened, and his breath came faster.

“I do not remember _Nost-na-Lothion,_ ” he said distinctly. “And neither does Maglor.”

The sound of soft voices approached, one raised in song: the masons, coming to work for the day. Fëanor glanced over his shoulder, and then back.

“I remember _everything._ I do not look at reflections, brother.”

One kiss. He took it, demanded it, before stepping laughingly aside to avoid being pushed away.  
“Come to me at noon,” he said. “Glorfindel will be there. We must speak of Angmar, and what forces this Mouth, Malantur, tempts.” He paused, and more quietly, “For thee, I will abrogate Maeglin's banishment from the Noldor, if that is the only way Aredhel will come here. And thou knowest it is.”

Fingolfin stilled, eyes wide.  
“I believe thou wouldst,” he said, after a moment. “But thou canst not revoke hate and betrayal, my brother. Maeglin is in Imladris for a reason, and perhaps what he does there will earn forgiveness.” His sternness softened a little. “Yet I thank thee. I will come at noon.” He turned with a sweep of inky hair and strode away.

~~~

No air. Nothing. But there is never nothing, and this no-place seethed with thought and energy. Only mind existed here, and one mind weighed upon the Void, one mind controlled it, shaped it to his desires. He arose in might and agelong hatred, cheated of the souls imprisoned here, those that would not be quenched, who _remembered,_ even as he remembered, (and the one who burned like the Silmarilli, flagrant in repudiation of him.) and drew another mind toward him, feeling its strength, the festering scoria of the disembodied who yearned for all the pleasures of flesh again, both their own and others.

Had human eyes been able to describe it, they would have beheld a window stretching from horizon to horizon, save there was no horizon; this was infinity. Behind it the dark of the void roiled, and the trapped souls howled avidly at the multi-hued gem of Arda, unable to cross over.  
Unable to cross, unless invited by the arrogance of one on the other side. That decaying sorcerer in Angmar would burn like levin if Melkor touched him. He was of no moment, but the crack he had opened was an opportunity. They came at whiles, tiny fractures through which only demons of malice and spite might pass. But now...Melkor measured Malantur's spirit against the one that waited beside him, a storm of malevolence, and thought of the face he had seen amid the fire, of hate, of vengeance. And because he knew fear, he knew what that one feared.

Melkor could not use Malantur, but perhaps another could.

 _Thou shalt essay this._ A command.

 _I will my Lord. My King._  
The Void resounded with the sound of Gothmog's pleasure.  
 _Nemrúshkeraz. Little one. It has been long._

~~~


	20. ~ The Wars We Wage Against Ourselves ~

~ _This is not my war._  
  
Vanimórë studied the sleeping boy as sunrise pushed the shadows of the Towers of Mist deep into Eriador.  
  
 _This is Túrin's war, and Beleg's and Maeglin, the people of Angmar, if there are any left. And perhaps Coldagnir's war now._  
  
He himself was as helpless in the face of a dead Man's vow as he had ever been under Melkor's domination. And the fact was black poison in his mind.  
  
He should leave, travel back to Dale and work as a guard to the merchant, Edric, as he had purposed and indeed promised, yet now the idea seemed absurd. Vanimórë had commanded warriors for most of his life, to turn his back upon Angmar went against all he was, both by training and inclination. But this was not his war; Dana had shown him that, Dana and Túrin. His new life, he knew, would lie in the south, and there was no better way to allow Elgalad time to accustom himself to the Harad than by traveling with a trader.  
  
Elgalad.  
He was sitting close to Zeva, rubbing oil into his horse's bridle. Now and then he glanced up, and seeing no encouragement, went back to his task.  
  
 _Every time I reject him, I hurt him. But what can I do? Leave him in Imladris? take him to New Cuiviénen? No. I will not. Ilúvatar gave him back to me._  
He despised himself ever more deeply as their time together lengthened. Once, such freedom had been a dream that he had almost succeeded in forgetting. There was no place in his life for fantasies. And now? Although he had realized it would be difficult to live with Elgalad, love him spiritually and not physically, he had not known it would be like this: so literally _agonizing._  
As if he heard, Elgalad looked up again. This time, their eyes clung like lovers.  
  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
  
Maeglin looked north. The storm over Angmar had spent itself, and the distant mountains hunched iron-black under the morning sun.  
  
He remembered Angband, how – _unprepared_ he had been, despite his bravado. To be helpless in the hands of the orcs during that forced march across Anfauglith had been unendurable, or so he thought. But when he was lead down into Angband, past the guarding Balrogs, to the Power on this throne, Maeglin knew there were places that no soul should tread. One could not prepare for Morgoth. Maeglin had held to his pride, but there were deaths that would cow the strongest heart, tortures to break the bravest spirit. And there was the offer – and Maeglin knew, under the darkness that had for so long licked at his heart, that Morgoth lied as he made it. Still he had grasped at, starving, hating...  
  
 _I bowed before Morgoth._  
  
 _I should have had the courage to die then._  
  
He shook his head at his useless self-pity.  
  
A hand rested on his back. “Dost thou believe in absolution?” he asked.  
  
“Is our rebirth not evidence of it?” Beleg murmured. “But thou art speaking of thy family.”  
  
“My mother wishes me to be accepted in New Cuiviénen.” He turned. “She thinks of the Blood-kiss oath.”  
  
“If Fëanor has invoked it for one who was a balrog, thinks't thou he would not for one of Finwë's blood?”  
  
Maeglin felt the hardness in his smile. “I am no balrog, Beleg. As thou sayest, I am Noldo and Finwion. Had I been Iathrim, wouldst _thou_ forgive me?”  
  
Beleg regarded him somberly, and for a little too long.  
“It would be hard,” he said at last. “I do not deny it. But surely thou hast paid.”  
  
“In the Void?” Maeglin raised his brows. “Have I? Others, including thyself, were condemned to the Dark for loving one of their own sex. My soul was banished for that, not for betraying my people, and they know that.”  
  
“Does it matter? It was... _terrible._ ”  
  
Yes. It had been.  
“I should let the Noldor decide my fate,” Maeglin said. _If there is a fate left to decide._  
Carn Dûm loomed over his thoughts, and it was crowned with blood.  
  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
  
The day came like fragments of gold.  
  
He blinked. Warm, relaxed. He could hear the wind, but it was not the mournful howl of Carn Dûm. This was lighter, sweeter, even playful. He could see, in his mind's eye, grass and flowers nodding in a breeze. And there were voices, a silver knotwork language spoken by supple tongues.  
  
Peacefully, he opened his eyes. There was shade over him, but less than an arm's length away sunlight abashed the flames of a small fire. A man stood beside it. Zeva thought for a moment that he was in a Rayabi camp, and soon he must rise to tend his horse and harness. But there was something both strange and familiar about the man. He turned his head then so that his profile came clear hard, unearthly, hair drawn back high and braided, the ear sweeping to a leaf-like point.  
  
Zeva stopped breathing, shock tearing serenity from him, and the Dark Prince looked around, straight into his eyes. He rose in one liquid movement and walked to where Zeva lay. His eyes were full of power, greater than the lord sorcerer's, drawn from a different well, but his first words were prosaic, and spoken in Westron. Zeva understood; the tongue had spread east long ago with trade, though he had rarely spoken it among his own people.  
  
“Art thou hungry?” The prince turned, said something in that alien language and another man came, as different as day to night, silver haired, eyes clear as rain.  
 _Shendini._ The White Demons of legend, perilous to Mortals, soul-stealers. All the tales he had ever heard flooded back, even as the demon smiled at Zeva. It was the kindest expression the youth had ever seen, and his face was so much more than beautiful.  
  
 _Not evil,_ he thought. _Not like_ him.  
He knew. He could _see._ The open eye.  
  
“Drink first.” The prince lifted Zeva effortlessly and propped him back against a wide shoulder. “This is Elgalad, an Elf. I am called Vanimórë. The Rayabi knew me as a servant of the Dark Lord, but now I am free, as art thou.”  
  
 _I know who you are._  
But Zeva could not say that he had heard the name, nor how and when. He shivered as memory-slivers slid under the skin of his mind. Elgalad handed the prince a cup, and Zeva smelled hot wine as it was put to his lips. He drank, gasped, drank again. It was sweet with honey, soothing his throat and warming his belly. Rain-bright eyes looked into his so gently that Zeva wanted to cry, and when the Elf reached out, touched his cheek with slim fingers, the tears spilled noiselessly. He closed his eyes.  
  
“All will be well.” Vanimórë held him in unfathomable strength. Oh, he was strong, and not in body alone, yet there was no threat in the compass of his embrace.  
“We are taking thee to a safe place, far from Carn Dûm. The Mouth has mine enmity for years beyond count.”  
  
“He...” Zeva stammered, wine surging, bitter now, into the back of his throat. “H-He...”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“H-he...”  
 _I was a man,_ he wanted to say. _I was a man, once. And he made me nothing._  
  
“I know what he did to thee,” came the rich voice. “So did he use me. I survived it, and will survive _him._ And so shalt thou.”  
  
To his uttermost shame and relief, Zeva sobbed. Elgalad reached out his arms, and he sank into a scent of white sweetness that melted through his skin, caressed his mind, promising that he would not be hurt again. He felt like a child, and was content to be so. After, Elgalad smoothed back his damp hair, and Zeva drank hot broth, exhaustion settling into his bones. He was not afraid now, not of the Dark Prince or the others. He knew that they meant him well. It was not a hope. Between his fall into the fire-pit below the dreadful statue and his awakening, his inner eye had opened, as his father had foretold.  
  
He woke to a world ripe with evening, and Vanimórë appeared as if summoned, helping him to his feet. Zeva was stiff, aching, but with a lightness inside him that hinted that his body was healing.  
  
“I am sorry,” he said, ashamed of his weakness, and not daring to look up into those inhuman eyes. The sense of power was intense, so close.  
 _Godblood,_ he thought. Men should avoid them, Jhitun had said. But Zeva could not avoid them, and they were not as the sorcerer. An arm came about him, only releasing him so that Zeva could relieve himself with some illusion of privacy, for which he was grateful.  
  
“I am sorry,” he said again, as he was returned to the camp, keeping his eyes on the ground. He could sense the others, but dared not look at them. They stung his senses, like wine on a wound, which would cleanse, but hurt.  
  
“There is nought to be sorry for, child.” There was sorrow in the prince's voice, glowering along a storm-front of anger, but not, Zeva knew, directed at him.  
He was given hot wine again, slept again. To sleep without cold or terror was more than a blessing.  
  
Later, Elgalad sat beside him, fed him cold meat, and little cakes thick with honey. They were delicious, and Zeva sucked sticky fingers, not having realized how hungry he was. He looked up nervously, but Elgalad smiled and bought a bowl of warm water. Zeva washed his hands and face.  
There was no lack of water in Carn Dûm. One could reach out through the narrow windows for snowmelt, or rain pouring from the roofs. And Zeva had done so, when the sorcerer was absent from his chambers, gathering enough in a bowl to try and clean himself. It was never enough. The sorcerer himself smelled rank, like meat left to rot that only carrion-birds would touch, and his scent clung to Zeva after. Now he scrubbed mercilessly, leaving red marks on his wet skin.  
  
Vanimórë picked him up as if he were a child and walked to a small tarn in the heather. Elgalad helped him into it, and Zeva did not notice the chill. It was _clean,_ and he had swum in the Gath since childhood. With a cloth he attacked his body as if it were to blame for his rape, his slavery and weakness, and a keening rose in the back of his throat.  
  
“Shhh.” Water soaked into his hair, ran into his eyes. He shivered as gentle fingers massaged his scalp, stood obediently as the same hands lead him out and dried him under the sun he had never thought to see again.  
  
 _The sun._  
  
 _Fire._  
  
The fire had reached out its arms to him.  
  
“I am here,” some-one said, and Zeva looked into the flames that had killed him.  
  
“Forgive me, Zeva,” they said.  
  
A man, but not a man, hair twisted in a massy river of dark red over one shoulder, the daylight sparking embers in its depths.  
  
“Who...?” he whispered.  
  
“My name is Coldagnir.”  
  
But that was not the name Zeva had heard in the light.  
  
“Do not think about it,” the fire murmured, and held him. He was warm, so warm after the endless cold of Carn Dûm, his head pillowed on a cushion of flaming hair.  
A hand smoothed his back. “Sleep.”  
  
When the youth's lashes fell, and his breathing came slow and easy, Coldagnir carried him back to camp, and laid him under the shelter, drawing the blanket over him. He looked up at Vanimórë and Elgalad.  
  
“He will heal,” Vanimórë said.  
  
“Will he?” There were bruises over the golden skin, some new, some faded, shadows pressed like thumbprints under the eyes.  
  
“Insofar as any-one who has suffered abuse ever does.”  
  
 _As thou art healed?_ Coldagnir asked. Vanimórë did not answer. There was no answer to give.  
  
Elgalad's eyes lifted to him. They were too full of pain for the boy, for him, for Coldagnir. It went beyond empathy, as if Elgalad's soul meshed with theirs to absorb the hurts done to them. And no-one could do that.  
  
“It is a wonder he did not suffer an infection and die,” he said harshly. “Malantur used him hard. Perhaps he is not as virile as he used to be, or would not risk killing his plaything.”  
  
The silver head shook, and Elgalad moved to his side. His fingers traced the sharp tattoos on his arm, looked again at those of the youth, so very similar.  
“Coldagnir is r-right, he d-does remind me of thee, my l-lord.”  
  
“I was never so pretty, my dear.” He felt his smile become a baring of teeth, because he knew what the Mouth had said to that boy. He had slipped into Zeva's unconcious mind, through layers of pain and horror and fear, seen what he had seen, heard what he had heard. All of it. His heart beat loathing, and wings of violence fluttered against his mind.  
“I want to flay him,” he said, black hatred pouring northward. “I want his death to last as long as his life. And I cannot even touch him.”  
  
“Some-one w-will.” Elgalad rested a hand on his cheek.  
  
“It is not enough. And I still do not know exactly what he is doing. Zeva was his toy; he saw nothing save the failures sacrificed to Melkor.” He stepped away.  
  
“Then we have to go in there.” Elrohir spoke behind them. “Into Carn Dûm.”  
Sunlight slammed down into the sudden hush as the twins gazed at one another, locking them into their private world where none had ever been permitted. Vanimórë could have breached it, he did not.  
“If you think the Mouth will not be drawn out,” Elladan continued. “We must go in.”  
  
“Malantur would sense any-one of Elven blood, and the orcs would smell thee.” He knew they would come to this point.  
  
The _Peredhil_ reached out, oblivious or uncaring of observation, and each placed a hand upon the other's heart; a gesture like a blessing, a promise.  
“He has to be slain – ” Elladan spoke as to his brother alone.  
  
“ – Even were he not attempting this... _madness!_ He is perpetrating rape and breeding orcs to _women_!” Elrohir finished, and then they looked at him, identical grey eyes stormy, unflinching.  
  
“I _know that!_ ”  
  
“And still thou wouldst prevent us?” Maeglin asked, his sudden appearance unheralded, fox-quiet. Aredhel stood at his shoulder, saying nothing to dissuade or support her son.  
Us.  
  
Vanimórë suddenly realized what he was seeing, as if a faceted gem turned to show another face of itself; the House of Finwë stamped its mark indelibly through generations.  
“I should not have to.” And saying it, he knew that were he not prohibited, he would have tried. Nevertheless. “None of thee know Carn Dûm. Thou couldst enter it unseen, possibly. But then what? Thou couldst kill many, but wouldst thou be immune to Malantur's powers? Perhaps – and perhaps not. And if thou art caught, or even one of thee is?”  
Their faces were set, resolute. _Bloody Finwions',_ he thought, as helpless rage clawed up his throat, and was pushed back.  
“Thou knowest what orcs do to their prisoners.” He watched for the flinch, saw it in the twins eyes. “The Mouth is more imaginative than any orc. Every-one breaks under torture, one way or another.”  
  
“Except for you, I suppose?” Elrohir snapped, and Elgalad span to face him, face alight with sudden protective anger.  
“Elrohir!”  
  
Vanimórë laid a hand on his shoulder.  
“I broke!” He poured scorn on himself with the words. “The only reason I was allowed to live was because I was useful! Malantur likes Elves, to _torment,_ to _rape,_ to _break._ Do not deceive thyselves into believing _I_ did not break. I _defied,_ that is all I could do. And thou wilt defy Malantur. Thou art warriors, so he will cut off both thy hands and feet. He will rape thee, then give thee to his orcs and _watch._ He will blind thee and scalp thee, and in the end thou wilt be _things,_ without humanity. I have seen what he does, when there was anything left to see. Dost thou think,” he hissed into their faces. “that will help any-one? _Dost thou?_ ”  
  
“Better that than allow him to wreak more harm,” Elladan said, all steel.  
  
Even so.  
“Thou wilt not be able to kill him. With skill and great good fortune thou might indeed be able to find him, but if he was supposed to die now, I or Coldagnir or Glorfindel would be able to kill him.”  
Zeva stirred, murmuring in his sleep, and Vanimórë turned on his heel and walked away, because for all his objections, they spoke true. And there was one thing he had not told them. One thing that might make a difference.  
Moondark.  
  
Coldagnir said in the tense quiet, “He can do nothing, and it is like to drive him mad.”  
  
Elgalad, turning to go after Vanimórë, halted. His eyes said everything, and Elladan cursed.  
“We are not obtuse, but we are not banned from acting, even if he is.” He asked more softly, “What would you do?”  
  
“I know,” Elgalad said, and: “I would t-try.”  
  
“He will feel thee,” Coldagnir warned. “Vanimórë is right, and those on the outside are waiting. Using him, though he knows it not.”  
  
“And still, it does not matter.” Elrohir's eyes dropped to the youth, small and frail under his blanket, and sat down close to him. “If the Mouth has done this to his ... _toy,_ what is he doing to the people of Angmar? We not be able to kill him, but surely we could do something?”  
  
No-one answered. No-one needed to. Vanimórë was out of sight now, over a fold of the land, and Elgalad started after him.  
  
Coldagnir joined him. They walked, but did not speak, breasting the worn, lichened rocks. Bees were already droning in the heather; a sound of peace, of summer. Vanimórë stood some way off, a tall and straight in the mellow light.  
  
“They are right.” Vanimórë spoke as they came to his side. “We know _what_ Malantur does in Angmar, but we still need to know how many orcs are there, how many Men, and if we cannot kill him, we have to release any captives that may still be alive.” He smiled derisively. “ _We,_ I say, yet I cannot interfere and nor canst thou. Or not yet.”  
  
“The dark of the moon.” Coldagnir whispered.  
  
“I went into Zeva's mind and memories,” Vanimórë explained into Elgalad's mute question. “I said nothing to thee, or the others, but it is the one time when Malantur's mind is otherwhere. It leaves him weak after, for a little while. The boy saw him return aged, like an old man. I wonder how weak he is now?” He looked north, then back to the camp. “Then would be the time to go in.” He kissed Elgalad gently. “But say nothing yet. I will speak to them in the morning. I thank the both of thee, for comforting Zeva. He will need much help.”  
  
“Thou d-didst comfort him also,” Elgalad said, and a rueful smile came, soon gone.  
  
“Not enough.” And the unspoken words hung in the still air, _I am broken. I cannot comfort, cannot heal._ They fell on Elgalad like a lash, and he whispered intensely, “My l-lord, _please._ ”  
  
Vanimórë's face opened to pure, devouring need. His whole body braced against it, before he drew Elgalad violently against him and breathed, “Why?”  
What or whom he asked, Elgalad did not know, only that for heartbeats he returned the kiss with everything in him, and was left cold in the slanting sunlight when Vanimórë walked away, a figure of power and pain.  
  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
  
So close to the Solstice, and this far north, the night was scarce more than a brief inhalation of the day. Elladan and Elrohir took the first watch though nothing had stirred in Angmar since Coldagnir's demolition of the tower. Why, they did not know.  
Vanimórë had not returned. Elgalad rose from beside Zeva, who slept on.  
  
“Wilt thou watch him?” he asked Beleg, who nodded with his lovely smile. He had said nothing earlier, but it needed only one glance at his serene face to read his decision; he would accompany the others to Carn Dûm. Elgalad knew that they _would_ go, that Vanimórë would not stop them because he believed it the right decision.  
It was.  
But everything he had said about their possible capture and fate was equally true, and his fear for them, his inability to aid them, was racking him to madness.  
  
The camp was quiet. Maeglin and Aredhel slept, or feigned it, and Coldagnir had left some time before. As he strode away from the small fire, into the grey-satin gloaming, Elgalad guessed that Vanimórë had called to Coldagnir, and his heart ached. He did not know exactly what had happened when the two of them had left Imladris, but even had they not been damp and disheveled, marked by lust, on their return, it was in Coldagnir's eyes: a release as of some knot in his soul.  
  
 _But I_ need.  
  
And Vanimórë's voice answered him from the past:  
 _“How could I take thee and sully thee with my life, my darkness? I must love thee and not possess thee, my love, for thou art mine_ innocence...” *  
  
Elgalad understood what Vanimórë needed. He was trying to recover and possess the innocence that had been taken from him so long ago, to preserve it untouched. No-one could blame him for that. Elgalad saw more behind those brilliant purple eyes than words or vision could ever reveal. The man he loved had been desecrated time after time, Age after Age, until he believed himself the sum of it.  
 _“I was never so pretty, my dear.”_  
So much more than self-mockery lay under those words. Vanimórë had been defiled and, in his own mind, become a creature without worth. That was what lay under the arrogant beauty, the utter competence; a blind denial of what he was. And with that hatred of self, came the refusal to believe that Elgalad could truly love and desire him. When he had cried, _Thou art a besotted fool!_ he had struck at the root of how he saw both himself and Elgalad. No-one pure could love what he was, and so desperately did he desire what he thought of as purity, that he equated it with the state of being inviolate. Elgalad could be his innocence only as long as Vanimórë did not besmirch him.  
He imagined what Vanimórë might do with Coldagnir, _to_ him, and his breathing became more ragged. An imperative erection strained at his breeches, and when he slid a hand over the doeskin, the sensation drew a stifled moan from between his lips.  
  
 _Immaculate?_  
  
How much did Vanimórë truly know about him or rather, Elgalad rephrased that in his mind, how much did he _choose_ to know? Would an immaculate soul have this ache between his thighs that begged for relief, that Vanimórë had seen and felt? When they traveled together, slept close, Elgalad felt he could not take himself in hand, for it would appear a flagrant temptation, and so he endured until it passed. Perhaps he should not withhold...He closed his eyes, touched himself again, inhaled sharply.  
  
 _Please,_ he implored the night, the far-breathing stars, the intransigent glory that was the man he loved. _I_ need.  
  
There was no answer  
  
 _Please!_ He stifled a groan behind his teeth.  
  
 _He is not with me._ Coldagnir's voice brushed soft against his mind.  
  
Elgalad's muscles quivered as his hair was lifted, and lips rested against his throat. His breath hitched, shuddered, then Coldagnir came to stand before him. Internal brightness lit his beautiful face like a far-off fire.  
“I will not lie; I wish he were.” As he spoke, he came close, and his fingers moved lightly over Elgalad's face, over his brows, cheeks, the shell of his ears. “I wanted him to fold back the Ages,” he whispered. “To take us back to Angband, to the first time I...” Elgalad averted his head, and Coldagnir drew it back, gazing at him with flames in the depths of his eyes. “And he did. But there can never be enough times. And thou...when he looks at thee, he makes love to thee in every way there is, in his mind. I do not know what alloy they created, Melkor and Sauron, when they molded him, but thou wilt shatter even that ere the end. But I am not formed of that metal.”  
  
“I do n-not want to break h-him.” Elgalad found it hard to articulate words, could not protest the gliding flight of the fingertips over him as they stroked down his throat, his chest, his stomach. A deep internal shivering seized him.  
  
“Why wert thou not afraid to reach out to me through my madness?” the Balrog asked, moving closer.  
  
It was easier not to speak.  
 _Thine anger was all directed inward to thyself, like Vanimórë's. Thou didst not hate me, nor any of us, but thine own power that had slain one thou wouldst save._  
  
“True.” Coldagnir's voice tightened. “And still, thou shouldst have been afraid, and were not. I am. What I saw...I am in fear. I thought I had escaped them, and now I believe they may take me back.”  
  
“No,” Elgalad breathed. “Th-thou art reborn.”  
  
“My body can still be slain, my spirit – and I do not want to be corrupted again. I was so close, and thou didst help me –”  
  
 _Help me._  
  
 _I did nothing..._ Then Elgalad's hardness was freed into the night air. He staggered, caught back a cry.  
  
 _No!_  
  
 _I want...I want..._  
  
 _No..._ He caught at cloth, felt the answering hardness under it, heard the intake of breath, and could not think. Then lips were on his, his own parting in reciprocal ferocity. And _Yes!_ he moaned. He was not immaculate; he was an Elf who saw no wrong in giving and receiving pleasure.  
  
 _Please._  
It was not he who begged this time. Laces parted, and he felt hot, hot muscle. He surged against it, and shock sang red lightning through his veins.  
  
 _Elgalad...._  
  
He threw himself into the fire, wanting more, so famished that he could scarce break the wild union of their mouths even to take a breath. When he did it tore into his throat on a sob of effort, became a moan when Coldagnir's fingers grasped his length. Blindly, instinctively, he wrapped his own about the Balrog's tumescence, and drew on it. Liquid slicked the head, his own, and his thighs trembled.  
  
 _I want..._  
  
And he saw what Coldagnir wanted. The Maia's mind supplied the images his lips could not form into words. He wanted Elgalad to take him, to be possessed with what he, like Vanimórë, believed was innocence, untainted by the shadows of Morgoth, to glorify him, so that he would never fall back into the darkness. Coldagnir perceived Fëanor, Vanimórë and himself as his saviors, but under it, through it, burned a pure hunger. He _desired_ Elgalad, and the knowledge was intoxicating. Vanimórë's unrelenting refusal to take their love to its natural conclusion wounded Elgalad even while he understood it. And now, he was _wanted._  
  
 _I cannot..._ But _Eru!_ he did not think he could stop now. His whole body was fire-hot, shaking.  
  
An arm came about him, steadying him, and Vanimórë lifted his and Coldagnir's startled hands. Elgalad watched him through the blood-beat in his groin, and when Vanimórë joined their erections with his own slim swordsman's hand, he could see nothing for a moment but a flare of light. Slowly, Vanimórë drew on them both, and Elgalad heard himself make a distant, fractured sound. He turned his head to meet the kiss, and the night became warm-damp skin, lips, Vanimórë's and Coldagnir's, breaking from his to be claimed by the other. Fingers pressed and raked down his back, and his own clutched desperately. Their breathing scaled upward into heaving pants. There was the scent of sandalwood and musk, and then only the _feeling._ Words tangled and tumbled in his mind, his name, their names, and Vanimórë's hand was on him, on Coldagnir, firmer, faster. Elgalad's head fell back, and tension mounted, molten, unendurable, then climbed still further. He heard, as if from a far-off place, Coldagnir pleading or cursing, he did not know; the Maia had fallen into his crystalline native language. He drew Elgalad's head up, and stared at him, his face wild.  
  
“Now.” He begged. “ _Now._ ”  
  
Elgalad drove his fingers through loose hair, into muscle. He could not see, could not hear. The intensity of his release seemed to take sinew, blood and bone from him in pulse after pulse.  
  
They were kissing him, drinking his shocked, heaving breaths, and he was kneeling, they all were. Elgalad watched as Vanimórë raised a hand to his lips and tasted the mingled essence. It was like watching a cat lapping fresh cream, and tore another throb from his loins.  
  
Vanimórë smiled, reprehensible and voluptuous, but with fierceness like rage behind it.  
“To see thee so abandoned – ” He pressed a finger over Elgalad's lips. “ _No._ No guilt, my love. No guilt.”  
 _I burn with wanting thee. I_ burn. _I am mad for thee. And I do not know how to ease it._  
His eyes swept to Coldagnir. “And thou, I know. I _know._ ”  
  
“Thou art a fool,” Coldagnir took a deep, shaking breath. “Thou art denying thyself and he to no purpose.”  
  
“I am denying myself so that I _do not kill him!_ Is that purpose enough?” It came as a whip-crack and Coldagnir's eyes widened, cast glints of scorched bronze back at him. Vanimórë came fluidly to his feet, shedding balked power and lust like mist around him. He raised his face to the stars and its terrible beauty was lonely as they and as brilliant.  
“Eru help me.” His voice came soft. “If this is the price of my freedom, I cannot afford it.”  
  
 _Oh, Vanimórë,_ Elgalad thought through aftershocks of pleasure. _My dear lord and fool. I said I did not want to break thee, but I do. I want to break the barrier of lies thou hast woven about thyself. I want to break thee, before madness takes us both._  
  
~~~  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * From Dark Prince ~ The Beginning.


	21. ~ Choices and Masks ~

  
“Is there anything I can do, uncle?” Glorfindel asked softly, and added bitterly, “within the boundaries set for me in this matter. ”

“He – Maeglin – has not fulfilled his task yet, has he?”

“Túrin is yet a child.”

“I believed that he was to reforge Anglachel.”

“He has done so, but I think there is more.” Glorfindel glanced across at Fëanor, who shook his head as Fingolfin paced to the entrance of the pavilion.  
“Then Aredhel will not come, even if thou,” he swung back to face his half-brother, “didst proclaim her son welcome here.”

Fëanor said nothing. He knew when to be silent, was imperious, not boorish.

“No,” Glorfindel agreed, then, “Uncle, Aredhel became lost in Nan Dungortheb under my aegis. It does not sit well with me to do nought, even at thy request.”  
Ecthelion and Rog had been there too, nonetheless, Glorfindel blamed himself, for his attention had wandered. He had been a proven warrior and lieutenant, and Nan Dungortheb had an evil reputation. The Valar had no hand in his lapse. It had been Fëanor, or rather the memory of him, that had caused his attention to focus inward, so that Aredhel had strayed beyond sight into the dank mists.

“I do not blame thee for that,” Fingolfin said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “I never did. Neither did Turgon.”

“Nevertheless, uncle.”

“I will not ask thee to bring her back, unless it be her will. No. I will not lay that upon thee.”

Fëanor stirred, but still did not speak. Outside, the noises of the encampment filled the silence: song, laughter, the chip of stone, horses, waterfowl, the ever-present breathing of the inland sea.

Malantur was performing blood-rites to Morgoth, had captured men and women of Angmar, and he had bred orcs with women.  
None of them spoke their fear aloud, as if to do so would call it into being.

“The next dark of the moon.” Fingolfin broke the quiet.

“The Mouth is weak for a time, then. The boy Coldagnir brought out saw it; he was aged like an old Mortal man.”

“Thou knowest not Carn Dûm?”

Glorfindel shook his head. “We fought in those lands, when the chieftain of the Úlairi ruled Angmar, but we never entered the fortress. And I cannot see it, no more can Vanimórë.”

“Only a fool would enter an enemy's stronghold without knowing what lies within.” Fingolfin stared at nothing. “And what if Coldagnir is right and something from the Void possesses this sorcerer?”

“We would have entered Angband.” Fëanor spoke at last.

“With an army.”

“Even were there no army.”

And Fingolfin sighed, “Yes.”

~~~

“...and I am thy mother, I am not ruled by thee!” Aredhel declared. “No, nor by any-one here.” She cast a look about.

“We do not doubt your courage, or your skill.” Elladan sounded ragged with anger. “But you are not a proven warrior, Lady.”

“I have not fought in a pitched battle, but do not dare to tell me I cannot fight.”

“My mother was taken by Sauron.” Vanimórë had said nothing until now, “She should have died before giving birth to my sister and I, yet she did not, kept alive by sorcery.” He gestured toward Elladan and Elrohir. “Celebrian was taken by orcs.”

“And all of thee fear that may happen to me? It could happen to a man no less.” She gestured toward Zeva, who was sitting up, a cloak about his shoulders, watching them, but unable to understand Sindarin.

“I do not know, Lady, how much power Malantur has, if he could do to thee what Sauron and Melkor did to my mother.” Vanimórë felt the bones of his hands creak as he clenched them.

Aredhel's eyes flickered. “No unnatural Mortal sorcerer could force me to bear a child.”

“Do you want to take that risk?” her son demanded.

“I will,” she told him. “It is for me to choose.”

“I understand,” Vanimórë said.

“ _What?_ ” Maeglin wheeled on him.

“I said, I understand. Do I think thou shouldst go with them, Lady? No.”

“And wilt thou stop me?” she dared him. She had his measure, Vanimórë thought.

“I should not have to.”

“Ah, now _this_ I recognize,” she nodded. “This is Turgon, telling me that if I loved him I would not distress him by asking to leave Gondolin. This is to make me feel guilt. Now, wilt thou try to turn my mind to other matters as my husband did, when I spoke of my people and Gondolin?”

“Would it work?”

“Only for the duration.”

“Then what would be the point?” Vanimórë returned. “There is a difference between learning how to use a sword or bow and training day after day and year after year to become a warrior. Whether thou likest it or no, they will be be watching for thee.”

“And thus I will be a liability?” Aredhel glanced at her son, who nodded unhappily, then walked with long strides in a half-circle, her eyes on Vanimórë. “Do not talk to me as if I were a subaltern. I am Fingolfin's daughter, I know of warfare.” Suddenly she moved behind him, caught the long braid of his hair and looped it around his neck with both hands, making a garotte. He stood motionless.

“I rode through Nan Dungortheb,” she said conversationally. “None sing of it, but that was a place of dread to freeze the hottest blood. I had a bow, a dagger and a short sword. And I used all of them. There were no warnings, no-one to fight at my back, no-one to aid me if I fell.” She pulled, hard. “I do not want or _need_ to prove myself to any-one. I am not a woman who wishes to be a man. I am a person who can make her _own choices._ Only a crooked soul loves the violence of war. I watched my people return from the Dagor Aglareb*. Glorious, they called it. It was a triumph and decisive yes, but I saw men dazed and weeping, and horrified at the slaughter, at what the violence did to them, what they became in battle.” Abruptly, she released his hair and spun to stand in front of him. “I do not seek glory. I seek justice. For that boy. For the woman who bore that half-orc thing we found, for the people of Angmar enslaved.”

“I know,” Vanimórë said. “And the danger is thou wilt lose thy temper when thou seest what I think thou wilt. Couldst thou, for mercy's sake, kill a woman or child who cannot flee, to save them the agonies of their existence? because there will be some like that, I am sure.” Perhaps all of them.

“He is right, mother. Apart from the risk – ”

“That is enough.” She flung out one hand. “My father wishes to speak to me.” Turning away, she walked across the heather.

“We cannot take her,” Elladan stated. “You surprise me.” He and his brother both looked at Vanimórë with hot anger. “You made a long journey with over a score of refugees from Lake Town and Dale; we have seen that you are chivalrous to women, yet you would let Aredhel go into such danger with hardly an objection? Then you let her think she was fast enough strangle you if she wished. That was ill-done.”

“I have always dealt with women who have had no choices,” Vanimórë murmured. “She has. And I wanted to see how fast she was. What wouldst thou have me do?” He felt wracked by his own lack of choices, and Aredhel reminded him of Dana whom he argued with, but could never dissuade and certainly not force. And perhaps Dana wanted her to go.

“Anything,” Maeglin stared to where Aredhel was walking, clearly engaged in mind-to-mind conversation with her father. “And if thou wilt not, I will. I saw her die once. I will not see it again.”

~~~

“She has reminded me that I would never attempt to prevent Fingon or Turgon.” Fingolfin walked to the door of the pavilion. “Nor would I. She tells me that the man who faced Morgoth in single combat should not speak of recklessness.”

“It is not the same,” Fëanor snapped. “What is she trying to do? prove over and over that she will suffer no hand on her reins?”

“I think it is not that. It is because Malantur had done abominable things to women. They could not fight, or perhaps they did, and it did not avail them. She can.”

Fëanor stared at his half-brother's face, then looked at Glorfindel.  
“So, thou art simply going to allow her?” he asked in disbelief.

“Yes!” Fingolfin cried. “Should I ask Glorfindel to tie her up, have the son of Sauron do it? She says she will make her own choices now, as all of us did and do.”

“Save for once, she always has made her own choices.” Fëanor closed his eyes, clasped his head between his hands.  
“How good is she?” he asked. “Really?”

“Skilled,” Glorfindel told him. “And she is right in what she said to Vanimórë: she did fight her way out of Nan Dungortheb.”

“Thou hast spoken of it.” Fëanor went to his half-brother, started to massage the tension that had gathered in his shoulders. “Sorcery and madness.”

“Spiders of the race of Ungoliant,” Glorfindel poured wine. “And other things, neither living nor dead.”

“If she does not come out of Carn Dûm,” Fingolfin said, his voice flat and hard as a blade. “I will take an army to the north myself, and this Malantur shall wish he died a natural death long ago.”  
He turned and Fëanor saw that his control, his seeming calm, was settled as a mask over rage and helpless fear.

“Didst thou tell her I would allow her son into New Cuiviénen?” Fëanor asked, smoothing the back of one hand down Fingolfin's cheek.

“ _If_ she remained behind. Yes. She would not accept it. She believes her son can make restitution for his betrayal.”

“Thou didst not say I would permit both of them to return, for thee?”

“No.” Fingolfin held his eyes, accepting the touch, the fingers that cradled the nape of his neck. “Thou hast done much in gaining the trust of thy people, but they will not accept Maeglin, and thou knowest it. Not yet, perhaps not ever. Thou canst not expect it of them. I will not allow it.”

Fëanor lifted his brows, and Glorfindel nodded.  
“Uncle, heed him. I believe Maeglin was punished enough in the Void. And hate him as I do, I have to take some responsibility for my own part in his betrayal. But to our people he is yet the traitor who caused Gondolin's fall. He may have a chance to make requital, but not if I bring him here. And there has been kinslaughter already, Celegorm killed Saewon and Orodreth slew Dúrech, not to mention those of Orodreth's men Eluréd and Elurín killed. There are many among the _Gondolindrim,_ Fingon's people, Finrod's, and perhaps thine own sons who would not balk at taking Maeglin's life.”

“There has been one rebellion,” Fingolfin added hardly. “I will not permit thee to sabotage thine own rule, brother.”  
_Not for any-one, for anything._

Their eyes locked, then Fëanor drew Fingolfin into his arms and kissed his cheek lingeringly, saluting him, loving him. He felt his half-brother resist, shiver and then return his embrace.

~~~

“I know how he feels.” Finrod paused to thrust a pin through his straying hair, and stood back, running his fingers lightly over the finished pattern. His song still clung to the stone like the last echoes of a tintinnabulation. “When I first witnessed the celebrations in Doriath I was...shocked.” A smile fluttered on his mouth. “Beleg was just as shocked that we did not see such times as normal.”

Legolas returned the smile, but it was strained about the edges.  
“He waits to see what I will do come Midsummer.” he looked up at the completed window, all scrolled around by a blue tracery of tiny flowers, lapis lazuli for the petals, jade for the stems and leaves.  
“This is very lovely.”

“This will be thine and Glorfindel's guest-chamber.” Finrod looked out, and Legolas followed his gaze. Not far away was a scattered grove of flowering cherry, left undisturbed by the building work. Thranduil had two such trees, the original seeds brought from the far east by traders long ago. They had grown eagerly under the wood-Elves hands and song, profligate with blossom in the spring, and glowing rich gold and red in the autumn. Here they were native, and Legolas loved them.  
“Vain trees,” he had laughed to Glorfindel. “They know they are beautiful.”  
At which the tree had crowned him with a fall of petals.

Finrod had chosen to site his mansion many leagues north of Gaear Gwathluin, to the west of a range of hills, outliers of the Orocarni. It was a nine day ride by horse if one went at messenger speed, but Legolas had not hurried. It was as if he and Glorfindel both held their breath.

“May I ask – ” Legolas turned. “Do you remember Nost-na-Lothion?”

Finrod flushed. “Thou may ask,” he replied. “And yes, I do.”

“And are you...uncomfortable with the memories?”

With a gesture, Finrod walked out of the chamber, past the industry of the building, the great areas cleared for stone and marble, the workshops and forges. Acres, the mansion would cover when built, but for now Finrod's folk dwelled in their pavilions, even as the other Noldor. Evening was stealing upon them, and the smell of cooking was in the air.

“When I questioned Beleg in Doriath,” Finrod said quietly, “he told me that whomever one was with on those nights, there must be mutual attraction, affection or love.”

“That is true,” Legolas agreed. “No-one is forced unwilling. It is not an opportunity to take some-one you know is uninterested, or for revenge.”

“Thou knowest the laws we were given: one love, one spouse, children, and then the fading of desire.”

“I still cannot see,” Legolas said pithily, “How such laws can be given or implemented. How does one _tell_ human beings that they may not love more than once, that their bodily hungers die?”

“We were rescued by the Valar, so we were taught. They said that those who refused the call to Aman would stray and fall from grace, become monsters, dark and twisted, eaters of their own dead, things that hated the light.”

Legolas had not heard that before. He stopped dead, seeing Finrod's tight smile.  
“The orcs?”

“Yes. When we saw them in Beleriand, there must have been many who remembered those words.”

“Truth and lies mixed together,” Legolas said. Few Elves wanted to believe that orcs and Elves had ever been one kindred, but it was known to be true; he had asked Glorfindel on that long voyage from Mithlond.

 _“I was shown it,”_ Glorfindel had said, leaning on the ships rail. _“Melkor used the darkest of his powers on both Men and Elves to corrupt them, but there had to be something there to warp.”_ All emotions, all appetites could be degraded, he continued. _“Perhaps we hate them so much because we know that the are indeed akin.”_

“Myself, I did not wish to believe it.” Finrod stopped by the bank of a slender stream that birthed in the hills and kneeling, reached his arm into a clear pool. It emerged holding a wine-bottle. “This is a pleasant spot. Shall we sit?” He trimmed the lead, slid out the cork. “I hope thou wilt forgive the informality?” Smiling, he held out the bottle.

This was Glorfindel's dangerous charm tempered, Legolas thought. Finrod's voice was mellifluous, his smile lovely. With his hair braided and coiled at the nape of his neck, Sindarin-fashion, his shirt unlaced, the sleeves rolled up over sinewy arms, and stone dust on his breeches, he still looked composed and cool as a pearl. It was, in fact, difficult to imagine him undone by passion.

“Thank-you.” Legolas drank. The wine was white and dry, bubbling on his tongue, chill from its immersion in the water. He handed it back, waiting.

“Truth and lies, as thou sayest. But that was how we were, Legolas: repressed until the greater part of us did not even realize it. The few who were... _different_ were seen as crooked.” He stared into the west, and shook his head. “My brother was not crooked. He _shone._ And if he was crooked then so was I.”

“I have to say that I never felt pity for the _Golodhrim,_ ” Legolas mused. “Not truly, until I realized how their minds had been caged. My people were the fortunate ones, living as they were meant to. Unfettered.”

“I came to believe that in Doriath,” Finrod agreed with a soft laugh. “It does not surprise me thou hadst the courage to seduce my brother. But by then he knew, as I knew, what the punishment was for such matings, so I understand his reluctance to compromise thee.” The laughter faded. “And so, it is only now that we are truly free. Yes, it will take some time to accept, or rather re-learn what we are. Glorfindel is no different, although I think that angers him. It is ground very deep.”

“And what I am,” Legolas said wryly. “is also ground very deep. I have never known any different.”

“Thou knowest he will always be jealous?” Finrod reached across to put a hand on his.

“I have also felt jealousy. And does not Fëanor think jealousy adds spice?” And Legolas did enjoy the thought of that. “I think Glorfindel believes now that when I was in my own home, I forgot him and had many lovers. I told him to look into my memories, but he does not want to. It is not true, but those Earth-days, and nights, are _different._ ”

“I can see why he would think that. Thou art very beautiful. And very different to what we are now, or were in Valinor.” The smile returned. “Fëanor is...Fëanor. All that clan...They may be closer to the ones we called the Dark Elves, than to the Noldor.”

“Or closer to what all of us truly should be?”

“Yes,” Finrod said. “And I think we will return to that. But we came here with more than one weight dragging at our shoulders. So, while I remember Nost-na-Lothion, and midwinter night, I cannot admit it to certain parties.”

And why he would not speak of it in his mansion, Legolas understood; too many listening ears. Aragorn had asked him, long ago, if it were not embarrassing and difficult to be so keen of hearing, and to live with others who were equally so. One learned from childhood to instinctively _not_ listen to private talk, but that was simply good manners. One could listen if one wanted to.

“But it does not make you ashamed?”

“The acts? No. Which I feel should surprise me somewhat. But Celegorm betrayed me.” And Finrod's face hardened, so that Legolas saw the man who had dueled with Sauron, fought a werewolf bare-handed to save Beren, and broken the song of Manwë and Námo. Despite his beauty and charm, he was not to be taken lightly. He had been a king, and died a hero's death.  
“And I betrayed him.” As if he saw Legolas' instant rejection he said: “Celegorm once asked me if I thought there was nothing in the Void. If the soul would be pinched out like a candlewick. He said he could not imagine not _being._ That was soon after he came to Nargothrond. Ten years he and Curufin were there...” He passed the bottle back. “I heard the Oath. Others would be consigned to the Halls of Waiting, yearning for the bodies and _finding no pity.**_ Not Fëanor and his sons; if they failed to fulfil the Oath then their fate lay in the Everlasting Dark. And they had named Manwë and Varda in witness, thus Námo felt doubly justified in banishing their souls.”

To think of any Elf, delighting in the world and the glory of their bodies as houseless, or imprisoned in Mandos was appalling, yet to imagine their souls cast into the Void, where Morgoth himself dwelled was horrific. Legolas pressed a hand into the grass, feeling his life, its life, both intertwining.

“What could I say to him, this man I loved and had vowed not to? That we would reclaim the Silmarilli, somehow, if it took an Age or more. And then when Beren came, because I too had made an oath, to Barahir...” Finrod spread his fingers. “Celegorm asked what I had done to him. To us. He called me a traitor, and he and his brother turned my people from me. That lies heavy on them still. They blame themselves as much as Fëanor's sons. It shames them.”

“And it should,” Legolas said more sharply than he intended.

“If thou hadst heard the words Celegorm spoke in Nargothrond – it was as if his father's spirit possessed him.”

“You do not forgive him, do you?”

“I do not.” Finrod's eyes burned icy blue. “My companions died one by one, and I could not save them. I died for a man who did not know me or love me, thinking of my cousin who had left me nigh as destitute as an escaped thrall. No, I do not forgive him. I hate him, and love him, and want him the more now that I have had him. Which is why – ” He seemed to wrestle with his emotions, said more calmly: “I choose to dwell here, far from the Fëanorions. And I will not welcome Celegorm.”

“Nor will you go back for Midsummer,” Legolas guessed.

“Unless the High King commands it. For withal, Fëanor is my liege lord, as I knew when I decided to come here.”

“Do you want Celegorm to come?”

Finrod's smile was difficult.  
“'Tis better for me to pretend I do not, Legolas. But I would ask thee and Glorfindel to celebrate Tarnin Austa with me.”

Legolas stiffened. “Did Glorfindel ask thee to invite us?” he wondered.

“He did not. I ask it for myself.”

Glorfindel loved his elder brother, Legolas thought, and it was true that Finrod's dwelling was more peaceful than the main encampment. When the mansions were completed, he imagined it would grow quieter, but it seemed that at the moment, those who had been separated for so long were determined to be close to one another. The sons of Fëanor would never be far from their father, and there was a sense of always living under a storm-sky forked with lightning. He looked up. The sky here was beneficent with evening. A great hawk hung in the air, wearing the late golden sun like silk.

“Forgive me for my ill manners,” he apologized. “However you spend Midsummer, I would be honoured to be your guest.”

Finrod leaned over and kissed his cheek. “My thanks.” And he smiled, then rose, drawing Legolas up with him. “Come, I would like to show thee something, and then we will bathe and eat.”

They walked to the forges, and Finrod entered one, greeting the smiths. Along one wall hung rows of small shield-shaped objects. It took Legolas a moment to understand what they were.

“Masks?” he asked, puzzled.

“They are not yet finished of course.” Finrod took one down and handed it to him, and Legolas traced a fingertip over the molding, nose, brow, cheekbone.

“Glorfindel.”

“Yes, though I modeled it on myself. We have very similar features.” He fitted it flush over his face, giving Legolas an odd frisson of shock. It was strange to see live eyes glowing from impassive metal. “We make a mold first, then the metal is shaped and decorated. Every-one will wear one of these on the night of Tarnin Austa. If thou wilt permit, I will make a mold of thy face, also.”

Legolas admitted to being thoroughly intrigued. “Of course, but why would you wish to go masked?”

“I thought,” Finrod said serenely. “that it might be interesting. Come, we will eat.”

“But you would know your family and folk, even masked, surely?” Legolas asked as they walked to Finrod's pavilion.

“We know, and do not.” Finrod smiled at his expression. “People become strangers without expression, and that can be...liberating. Thou shalt see.”

“Is this something you did in Nargothrond?”

“Once or twice. Fëanor began it, in Tirion. When people are masked they behave differently. I do not know why.”

~~~

The hawk wheeled gracefully away to the south, dropping, leagues away, to a gloved hand. Celegorm smiled into the wild golden eyes, then lifted his wrist, and the bird swooped to the freshly killed pheasant and began to feed.

“My thanks,” he murmured, and turned his horse toward the encampment. _Well, Finrod, love me, hate me, and want me the more now? Thou art honest to all but me. Thou doth wear a mask all the time. Well, so shall I at Midsummer._

~~~

Feeling Elgalad's eyes on him, Vanimórë looked around, opened his arms. Elgalad came into them at once, the comforter, not one seeking comfort, Vanimórë realized, kissing the silver hair under his mouth.

 _Thank Eru I have him, this one constant, this love._  
He had feared Elgalad would withdraw into himself after last night.  
_There is so much of his life of which I know naught, and will not look to see._

“What wilt thou d-do?” Elgalad asked.

“We will stay with Zeva, move the camp a little way. I would rather take him back to Imladris, or the Dúnedain village, but I need to be close. If Malantur sends soldiers out of Angmar – and he will, then at least Coldagnir and I can act.”

“Why thinks't thou h-he has not sent any-one out?” Elgalad's fingers moved slowly over his back, as if mapping out a strange terrain. Vanimórë felt his breath hitch, his manhood stir.

“I think...the orcs he had do not like the summer light, and he has few men. Zeva said there were not many. He does not know what happened save that it was done with power...He will be afraid, and he will watch until the next dark of the moon...” He tilted up Elgalad's head, kissed him ferociously. “He will fear another attack...” Elgalad strained against him, his kiss honey, blue silk, deep, sweet power, and something under it all like the sky breaking apart to the battle trumpet of some unknown and beautiful god.  
“He will man the gates...the walls...And he has powers, until that night, and the day after...” _Elgalad!_ ”

They stared at one another, both trembling.

“Please,” Vanimórë whispered, because he had no voice. “This is too hard for me.” Did he speak to Elgalad or Eru or both?

“And for m-me.”

“Any-one here I think, would have thee, would give thee pleasure, and it _would_ be pleasure, thou knowest it.”

Elgalad's long white throat moved as he swallowed.  
_I have loved thee all my life. I have desired thee since those hungers first woke in my body. Dost thou think it would stop me wanting thee?_

_I wish it would._

_Dost thou?_ Elgalad asked. _Truly?_

_I should._

_Thou art not always very wise, art thou?_

Vanimórë laughed at that, tiredly, with amusement.  
“I am trying to be wise for both of us, Meluion.” He rested his brow against Elgalad's. “I am not the man thou thinks't me. I wish I were.”

“Thou art _exactly_ the m-man I think thee. I am not, I think, what thou wouldst have _me._ ”

“Thou art more. And others know that also.” Vanimórë slid an arm about Elgalad's waist and walked with him back to the encampment. Beleg was talking quietly to Coldagnir, who sat near Zeva. The bronze-metal eyes lifted. Vanimórë felt Elgalad's quiver as they touched him. He scooped a thin slice of air. A wave of desire scorched from the Balrog like heat, stinging Elgalad's cheeks.

 _Thou hast kissed the fire,_ Vanimórë murmured. _And it desires more._

The sun was falling, so very slowly, into the west, and the soft air was potent with need.


	22. ~ Princes of Earth, of Light and of Fire ~

  
~ Elgalad put the wine aside. It was not helping him, and he thought they should conserve their wine for greater need than his hot, red nervousness.

They had eaten, and the camp was quiet. Aredhel and Maeglin were on watch, Elladan and Elrohir sat close to Zeva, who had consumed the roast grouse and flatbread drizzled with honey as if he had never tasted food before. They had given him a little hot wine, and now he was awake, but appeared relaxed as the Peredhil spoke gently to him. Vanimórë and Coldagnir were nowhere in sight, but he could feel them.

Elgalad had lived a long time in Mirkwood without Vanimórë, yet he was always there, the link between them like a gold chain buried in the ground, connecting them each to the other, unseen and precious.

When he had returned from Imladris after Malthador banished him and later tried to kill him, Thranduil had spent a long time talking to him, and had asked him, without censure but curiously, why he loved this mysterious _Golodh_ thrall. Was it, the king wondered, that the man had raised him, protected him, a child's love for a father-figure that had somehow become more?

Elgalad had considered the question himself. He knew well enough that he had been entirely dependent upon the one he called his 'Lord', as all children are dependent on their parents. And there was no sense of mere duty in his Lord's care, nothing begrudging. Yet knowing what he was, if not who, it was astonishing that a slave of Sauron had given the young Elgalad anything at all. He realized that Thranduil and Legolas envisaged his Lord as grim, unsmiling, (Which he could be.) humorless, (Not so.) scant-worded, (Again, yes, he could was often quiet for long periods.) and Elgalad found himself telling both of them of his dry, teasing humor, his patience, his sudden rich laughter, and the even richer love that he gave. Perhaps he did not know he gave it, but Elgalad came to understand that he gave it because he _needed_ it, because that, under all the dark glamor, the utter competence, was the man he truly was, and Elgalad loved that man.

He had believed his Lord lived because he had to, because he refused to believe anything else, because he knew, in a way that surpassed knowledge and far surpassed logic, that they were meant to be together. He could not see how, which was one of the reasons he had elected to travel to Mithlond when the War of the Ring began. It was just possible that his Lord might be able to escape Sauron and come there. Howbeit, Elgalad did not want Mirkwood, long his home, to be attacked by any force lead by his Lord, so supremely dangerous, and who did not himself want to be used as a weapon against the Elves. When Elgalad had made himself face the fact that, bound as he was to Sauron, his Lord would never be able to escape, he had turned back – and met with Maglor. 

Now, Elgalad knew that meeting had been meant, to bring Maglor and Vanimórë eventually to the edge of the Great Sea, and his own death that had propelled Vanimórë into the actions that lead to his apotheosis. And there was more behind that than Elgalad could comprehend as yet.

But they were together now. He had thought once, that should such a miracle ever come to pass, the transition to a physical relationship would be easy. Vanimórë desired him, he said so with words, with the reaction of his body. Other men had wanted Elgalad, and the signs were easy to interpret. But he had not understood Vanimórë's entrenched and violent self-loathing. He, who would never blame a victim, who had gone to such lengths to help the women of Dale and Esgaroth, yet blamed himself for the torments wreaked upon him over the Ages. He considered himself too stained to touch Elgalad.

And Elgalad could have wept at such wrongheadedness. Vanimórë could not stain him any more than he, Elgalad could cleanse Coldagnir. Both of them believed they needed an external forgiveness, when in truth it lay within them. Eru had lifted Vanimórë into power, and Eru – here Elgalad had to smile a little at his attempting to comprehend the mind of Ilúvatar – unless he were very much mistaken, Eru had acted through Coldagnir to bring Zeva back to life. All he had done was...What _had_ he thought he was doing?

 _“You think too much, and enjoy yourself too little.”_ A voice from a long time ago, deep with amusement and affection.

“May I ask th-thee something?” He crouched down near Beleg.

“Of course, Elgalad.” Beleg's smile always startled Elgalad, for it was so like his own, like Legolas'. “What is it?”

“I do n-not wish to open old w-wounds.”

Beleg rose. “My dear, life always mingles the sweet with the bitter, and I think thou knowest this as well as I. Ask what thou wilt.”

They walked a little away from the fire.

“T-Túrin,” Elgalad said hesitantly, watching Beleg's face. “He was thy greatest love, was he not?”

“Yes he was.” There was something so tender, so surpassingly beautiful in Beleg's expression as he said those words, that Elgalad ached to tell him the truth of Túrin, though the knowledge that the Man had condemned himself, bound himself to Arda for so long, would bring Beleg sorrow.

“But thou didst h-have other lovers?” Then he flushed. Of course. Beleg had fathered children; naturally he would have had others.

“Yes, of course. Men, and Nellas. She was also a dear friend, which is a beautiful thing. Friend and lover.” Beleg regarded him steadily, gravely. “Even after Túrin left Doriath. To share the pleasures of the body should be a joy, Elgalad. It can be many things: comfort, pleasure, lust, love. It can be healing.”

“I know.”

“And so do I know.” His smile dispelled the customary moon-cool serenity of his features. “One has only to look, as I have done, and listen. No, I would not eavesdrop,” he assured Elgalad. “But I know that Vanimórë fears to possess thee, and Coldagnir wants thee.”

He must have heard them the previous night, Elgalad thought. Elves did not find sexual activity to be something shameful. Or perhaps he had simply observed their interactions on the journey here. He missed nothing, Beleg.

“It is hard to love a man who hates himself,” Beleg said.

“Túrin?”

“He wanted to rescue his father, to free his mother, Dor-lómin itself. I know that he rose high in Nargothrond, but I think, knowing him, that guilt lay on him always, that he hated all he did not achieve. Hard to love, yet so easy to love.” He smoothed the back of one hand down Elgalad's cheek. “What is it that draws us to them?”

“The need t-to show them that they are w-worthy,” Elgalad murmured.

“Yes. And Coldagnir is another.”

“He wants...h-he thinks...they both think m-me innocent, and they b-both _want_ that.”

“Purity,” Beleg corrected. “And yes, thou art pure of heart. Nothing else matters.”

“I wonder if he understands me at all.” Elgalad pressed his cheek into the gentle caress, feeling the strength under it.

“I know little of Vanimórë, and I do not want to imagine his life, and yet I can, a little. Of course he cannot understand thee. He was not loved. Thou wert.”

“By him, from the m-moment I was born, and th-then others, Legolas, Thranduil. And _I_ love h-him.”

“But who else?”

No-one. Thus Vanimórë could not understand how any-one could love him.

“I love my Túrin,” Beleg said. “And yes, I will call him mine. Wherever Men go after their deaths, whether he ever knew it or knows it now, I love him still. With all his pride and stubbornness, his temper and intransigence, there was a deep sweetness in him that think few ever saw. But I loved all of him, even as thou lovest thy Vanimórë. Yet I had other lovers, and so did he, after I died.” He looked north, into the dark, then back to Elgalad. “I feared for thee. Thou wert not afraid of Coldagnir.” At the head-shake, he went on, “He looks like an Elf, save for his eyes, like Vanimórë, but he is not. And he is very dangerous. They both are. And thou hast no fear.”

“I do n-not fear they will h-hurt me.” Elgalad's words wisped away. “How canst thou b-bear it?” he wondered. “I do not know if I c-could. I knew, or believed, that Vanimórë l-lived, even though he was thousands of l-leagues away.”

“I always knew I could not keep Túrin.” Beleg's voice was tranquil with old resignation. “I knew that he could not accept intimacy between males, not truly. I knew one day he would go far beyond me.”

 _And he will go far beyond thee again,_ Elgalad thought, embracing his kinsman suddenly, and with love. Beleg deserved more; his love, his loyalty, his courage, all deserved far more.

“And thou art straying from the trail.” Beleg kissed his cheek. “Thou art not afraid, so what is it? I cannot advise thee, nor would I presume to.”

“I wonder if...I w-would go with Coldagnir for th-the wrong reasons,” Elgalad drew back to look into Beleg's face. Starsheen clung to it. “In the hope of m-making Vanimórë jealous enough to t-take me. Coldagnir could be h-hurt, too. I do not want to use h-him.”

“I do not think he would feel used. And what of Vanimórë?”

“He th-thinks I should. That I should l-love others. Or h-he thinks he _should_ want th-that.” Elgalad could not forbear to smile, though it felt more like a grimace. He hoped to breach Vanimórë's intransigent barrier with love, but he had to admit to himself that he was not averse to provoking jealousy, and was that wrong of him? He knew Vanimórë battled with his desires, and did not want to hurt him, but he felt that if just once they made love, their relationship could truly blossom, become what he had always wanted it to be from the time he had first looked at Vanimórë as a man, not a guardian.

“He has been too long a prisoner,” Beleg told him. “And too long tried to master his own emotions. I pity him, though I would never say it, but ask thyself, Elgalad, what dost thou want at this moment, and for thyself?”

~~~

Whichever way he walked, he knew he would find Coldagnir. The stream murmured close by, a lonely voice in the wide night. Coldagnir stood beside it.

The Balrog said nothing, simply looked.

_I know what he is. I know what he did to the man I love. And still, I do not hate or fear him._

Elgalad had known hate and fear both. His stammer had been birthed in Dol Guldur; he had known fear in battle, but looking into those bronze eyes he felt what...sorrow for sorrow? Vanimórë had, it seemed, forgiven Coldagnir. Perhaps Elgalad should not have, but he saw some-one who hated and regretted his acts, and was terrified of repeating them.

He stopped. He could have reached out and touched the other, but his hands clenched into fists, and his breath came from somewhere high in his chest, stifled by his heartbeat.

Coldagnir still said nothing, and so he must. He was not abashed by what had happened last night. It simply had not been enough. He had wanted Vanimórë, Coldagnir had wanted him, or both of them.

“Thou knowest I c-cannot...cleanse th-thee.”

~~~

He never looked. He never asked. Elgalad's innocence, that purity Vanimórë so desired, so _needed_ was not dependent on his virginity, but Vanimórë saw it as something he himself could not sully, was not worthy of touching. Elgalad had lived with the wood-Elves, and from what he had said of them, they loved freely, without the guilt that weighed on the souls of the Noldor.

_Think of something else._

If the others were determined to raid Carn Dûm, first they had to approach without being seen, and save for the Mountains of Angmar, the land ran flat north toward the tundra. Malantur would have some watchers posted, surely. He was not a stupid man. Sauron would never elevate fools to positions of power, yet Vanimórë wondered that no-one had been sent out after Coldagnir's attack.

_He is decaying._

The thought gave him pause. A small breeze, scarcely more than a faint movement of the soft air, traced his face, lilted away.

 _He uses a great deal of his power on these things he is breeding, and blood restores him, but Sauron is gone. He is decaying very slowly. I wonder if he knows it? Perhaps he is quite mad, now, and actively tries to call a spirit from the Void to extend his wretched life._ He is afraid. _That is why he keeps his men and orcs inside Carn Dûm._

They would have to travel by night and carefully. Vanimórë could not see the mountains now. The clouds had returned to smother them. That would help. Even orcs did not see well in fog. But what could Malantur sense? Perhaps Coldagnir could distract him. He had managed to get very close, and Malantur must have been terrified by the destruction of his bloody temple.

_A temple to Melkor. Thou fool. Hadst thou ever known him, thou wouldst have melted before his might._

And yet, Malantur had come to Mordor and Sauron, and in some ways, Sauron's steely subtlety was more frightening that Melkor's crushing power.

 _Why could I not get as close as Coldagnir,_ he wondered.

Coldagnir. He would be offing his clothes, shaking free that cloud of crimson hair...he was beautiful in his strangeness, the vulnerability of that strangeness, and Elgalad would want him. As he had last night. And Coldagnir would want Elgalad, silver under the stars...Vanimórë knew what the Maia wanted of him, understood his belief that Elgalad could cleanse; he saw what Coldagnir saw. But Coldagnir had been drawn to Arda by wanting to experience the joys of a physical form. He desired fleshy delights, not only spiritual ones.

_Do we not all?_

_Think of something else!_

~~~

Coldagnir dropped his shirt on the grass, spoke at last. “Why didst thou kiss me?”

Elgalad's hands made a fluttering movement. “I told th-thee. I did not want thee t-to despair.”

“Thou needst not have kissed me.”

A pause. “It seemed n-natural.” And it had.

“How didst thou know my true name?”  
He came closer. Elgalad burned up. He saw his reflection in Coldagnir's eyes, and he stood in the midst of fire. There was a light at the heart of it, and he knew it, had known it and forgotten it. He flung himself into the Maia's eyes, and the vision retreated, beckoning him to follow.

To follow.

He hurtled into darkness, black blushed with red. Titan walls shone fire into his eyes, lofted themselves beyond his sight. There was a deep steady drumming somewhere, like a heart.

His fingers touched stone, smooth as glass, warm as flesh. Real and unreal, because he was not afraid. And he should have been. This was Utumno. Vanimórë had never known Melkor's first fortress, yet Elgalad knew it.

_Coldagnir is showing it to me?_

He saw orcs, and knew what they were. The beast was in their eyes. They had been tormented and corrupted into the part of humanity that will inflict pain for the pleasure it gives, and watch without empathy, even with arousal as the victim screams and writhes in agony. Behind them all was a fierce and enraged will, colossal as Utumno itself, so forceful it had embedded itself into the very rock.

The creatures did not see Elgalad as they went about their nameless and unnameable business, but he thought they sensed him, for their nostrils snuffed the air like wolves catching a distant scent. There were other things too, that had come from beyond time, and taken the shapes of the Earth in many forms.

One of them was here. Close.

Elgalad's head turned toward the shout of power that streamed from some distant inner place. Melkor was there, waiting, planning, weaving his essence into Arda.

Something was coming, answering that presence. He saw it in the strange red light. It was black, not black and beautiful as was Dana. This was a nullity, a negation of what once had been. Human in shape, it was yet hard to see, for black fire wavered under the flesh, and the hair was braided with flame, flowing like wings behind it.

He walked reluctantly, like a beaten thrall, and Elgalad could hear his breathing cast back by the rock; the last shaking sobs of one who has wept until there are no more tears left.

Elgalad could see nothing of Coldagnir in this thing of flame and shadow.

 _I am here, Nemrúshkeraz,_ he said.

The Balrog stopped. One hand braced against the wall. Its fingers were tipped with iron-dark talons. It lifted its head. Eyes of scoured bronze. Coldagnir's eyes, the only part of him left.

The head tilted, turned, seeking the source of the voice. Elgalad reached out. He felt no heat, even from the fire-streaming mane. He tried to draw Coldagnir's face from the blackness, and for a moment he saw it: oddly triangular, cheekbones like blades, thin lips curling back from carnivorous teeth. It was alien, attenuated as if by pain. Impossible that any recognizable emotion could show on those features. And yet it did. Coldagnir shrank back against the stone, staring.

A thunderous wave of heat poured down the hall. Melkor's command like a tide in the blood, irresistible. The Balrog turned toward it, human despair on an inhuman face.

_No. Come with me._

Elgalad took one of its hands. Peculiar, radiant heat burning _otherwhere_ sank into his skin. He drew Coldagnir away, away from Melkor's mind, away from Utumno, to a place where the stars could shine on them. The Balrog gazed up at them, and its face was inhuman in its angular lines. The thin lips skinned back over black daggers. Elgalad forced himself to look away from them, into the eyes, Coldagnir's eyes, made himself see what had been before and what would be again, the glory that Melkor and Coldagnir himself was twisting and burying.

Fire traced patterns on his hands, his arms, as he drew the Balrog close, lips touching the thin mouth whose teeth could have ripped out his throat.

_But he will not harm me._

It was difficult to remember this was not truly real, because for Coldagnir to receive his perceived healing, it had to _seem_ real.

Elgalad tasted the metal of old blood caught and dried on the fangs, and was caught, for an infinitesimal pulse-beat, in revulsion. The heat warned his flesh what it could do, and he closed his eyes.

 _That was Coldagnir, but_ this _is Nemrúshkeraz._

Something warm fell in dotted moth-wings of moisture on his cheeks. He drew back, saw the stars wink in the tears. Gently, he pushed his fingers into the inward-burning fire of the Balrog's hair, then drew him down onto cool, mossy grass. He did not want this dreadful, pitiable creature, but he had to, and so he thought of Coldagnir last night, how they had come together in tempestuous and mutual hunger, how he had needed, but withheld. He thought of Vanimórë, of how Coldagnir had gazed at him on the brink of release...

And there, under the ancient stars, he was engorged, and pushing, and penetrating...

_Ah! so hot._

The Balrog made a keening in his throat, hissing, arching as Elgalad thrust. He supported one long thigh over his shoulder, leaned in, and opened his eyes. A fence of spiked teeth grinned at him, and again, revulsion yelled in his soul.

 _Nemrúshkeraz._ He wanted to weep. _This is not he. This is Nemrúshkeraz. And_ this...

Hair like a melted ransom of rubies, metal-sheen eyes under a frame of winging brows, sumptuous curl of lips under the straight nose, skin luminescent as pale opals, with the same sheen and fire-glitter beneath...

_That is Nemrúshkeraz._

_Elgalad._

The Balrog clung to him, drawing itself closer as Elgalad rocked into him, and their mouths met. This time, Elgalad tasted sweet nectar, honeyed wine. With each slow thrust, Coldagnir came back, and there were still tears in his eyes.

_Elgalad, please!_

_This is what thou doth want, Nemrúshkeraz. Take it._

~~~

A vision in the power-drenched darkness; beauty that he had not seen since leaving the Timeless Halls.

He knew the face, knew whom it was who walked Utumno's screams, untarnished and splendid. He had never imagined that one so mighty would remember him, would come _for him,_ and he wanted to hide himself in shame from the glory of those eyes. But a hand took his and drew him from the depths, and he lay down under roofless sky with the highest prince of the Timeless Halls.

And as his pleasure mounted, it spread light through his body, his soul. It told him, _Thou art loved._ It told him, _Thou art forgiven. Thou art Nemrúshkeraz, son of Eru, prince of fire._ And it vowed. _I will not let them have thee again._

He came, in the end, with a sobbing cry. He was still weeping as Elgalad took him in his arms, and he rested in Love.

When he woke, he remembered a song like a blade forged of wild silk, and eyes like the first rain upon the Earth. Vanimórë was sitting in the muted calm of dawn, watching them.

  
In Utumno, in the deeps of the past, Coldagnir the Balrog woke. There was a scent of cool white flowers, and the memory of a face.  
He wept.

~~~

“I see.” Fëanor folded his arms and looked at his third-born son.

“That was how he did it, _adar;_ how he altered his appearance and that of his men, and...” Celegorm paused on the hated name _Beren,_ before snapping it off with his teeth.

“Yes.” Fëanor considered. Behind him, came the tap-tap of jewel-smiths hammers on some delicate piece of work. “Interesting. Clever Finrod. I never thought he took notice of my masquerades.”

“Wilt thou do it?” Celegorm asked.

His father's eyes were full of laughter.  
“Of course.”

~~~

It was beautiful. It was uncanny.

Legolas picked up his mask, settled it over his face. The shape was perfectly molded over his bones, and there was no buckle or cord to secure it behind his head; instead there was the feeling of faint suction, as if the mask held of its own volition to his skin. He almost expected it to moves as his muscles did. It was thin as good vellum, and the uncanny quality lay in how, once it was on, one could not feel it, as if it _were_ ones face.

Finrod had decorated it. Leaves and tendrils of sweet ivy enameled in green, delicate stitchwort-flowers in white, grew from the metal at a point between his brows and fanned upward and out toward his hairline, gemstones followed the curve of his cheekbones, little points of emerald, diamond, sapphire. A star of beech leaves sprayed the center of his forehead, and in the midst of them was etched his rune.

His eyes were real, his lips were real, the edges of the mask milled so fine that he could only tell where metal ended and flesh began by touch.

“Think of some-one,” Finrod said, behind him. His reflective face showed a smile serene as milk. His hands, on Legolas' shoulders were Glorfindel's hands, shapely and slender, and very strong.

Legolas shook his head a little, and the wheat-silk of his hair deepened to waves of melted gold, and the mask, though it was still metal, took on the lineaments of Glorfindel's features. Legolas took a step back, coming up against Finrod's chest. He blinked and the image was gone.

“This is how you altered your appearance,” he murmured, fascinated. To the south, Celegorm was saying the same thing to his father.

“Yes,” Finrod agreed calmly.

Legolas considered, and now he was looking at Elgalad; even the blue of his eyes had become dew-grey, his hair a waterfall of silver.

“In Valinor, we were not supposed to cast eyes on others if we were married,” Finrod said. “And never one of our own sex. Glorfindel will tell thee of our festal days. When Fëanor made these...” He smiled reminiscently. “I never used one. I had promised myself. Here, no such promise binds me. And my people deserve to celebrate our new home. Many are still diffident around me, and horrified at Orodreth's treason. I wish to give them a time of pure enjoyment.”

Legolas, who thought that Finrod's people should indeed feel compunction, and who had not mentioned Orodreth either to Glorfindel or Finrod, merely nodded. Elgalad's face nodded in the mirror.

“We will all dress the same at Midsummer,” Finrod continued. “And all will be masked, but whether they use the craft that is in the masks, is entirely at their own discretion. They can choose not to, and choose not to know. It is not very different from our being made to forget Nost-na-Lothion for a time.”

Legolas felt the anger clamp down on his skull. It still rankled. He and Glorfindel talked, but not about that. They were intimate, but a door had closed within both of them. It was uncomfortable, disconcerting after so many years. Glorfindel was trying to comprehend an alien language. He wanted to learn it, but his possessiveness and ingrained, enforced familiarity with his own native language was a barrier. He was trying to breach it, and Legolas wanted to help him, but he would not help by caging himself, just as the Noldor had been caged long ago. Glorfindel must accept him as he was, just as he must accept Glorfindel's quintessential jealousy. He had seen it in Imladris, but never so strongly. He probably knew that no-one in Imladris would risk his wrath.

“May I ask thee something?”

Legolas realized he was smiling, small and wry. “Of course.”

“Were there many lovers beside Glorfindel?”

“The question Glorfindel has not asked me, or not directly.” He ran his fingers over the mask. “Not as many as he thinks, I am sure.”  
“The Silvans, who lived in the Greenwood since the time of the Great Journey, they call the forest _our eternal mother._ We protected our mother, hated to see her ravished, hurt, tarnished, though she had a strong and ancient heart and could heal herself, we wanted to augment that. And we did. I was – am – a prince and a warrior. I wanted to fight for my mother, also. You surely know the bonds that can form among warriors, and sometimes we were long away on missions. So, on such nights as Nost-na-Lothion, or Midsummer and Midwinter, those bonds drew us together. I can imagine what Glorfindel is thinking, and he will not look into my memories lest he be proved right. He is wrong, in the main, but there were some...very special lovers who were, and still are, dear friends. I am homesick sometimes. Does that surprise you? And I feel no shame in having shared myself with them. Nor should Glorfindel.”

Elgalad smiled sweetly from the mirror. Finrod's ice-blue eyes, twin to Glorfindel's, watched with sudden understanding. He reached out to touch the silver pour of hair. Legolas shook his head again, lightly, and his own features seemed to flow back into the mask, his hair returned to palest gold. He raised a hand to his face and the mask came away easily. He set the exquisite, exiting object back upon its stand.

~~~

When he had gone, Finrod folded his arms and gazed unseeing at the ranks of masks. He looked up as some-one came through the workshop from the rear.

Finrod said to Finrod, “Didst thou satisfy thyself, brother?”

Finrod moved away from the masks, his hair gleaming into bright gold.

“I suppose I did,” Glorfindel, who needed no mask, replied.

“And wilt thou accept it?”

“I do not have many options do I? I accept how he is, or our relationship withers. I love him, desire him, need him. I have to accept him, his life, his people, or how can I be Vala of all the Elves? And how – ” He traced the embellishment upon his own mask, the rayed sun, the emeralds, the golden topaz, the fire of blue diamonds. “How can I encourage the freedom of the Noldor if I do not wholly believe in it?”

“He thought of thee first.”

“So he did.” Glorfindel looked up. “Tarnin Austa should be _exceedingly_ interesting.”

~~~


	23. ~ The Fire On The Edge Of The Shadow ~

  
~ “What causes it?” Aredhel asked.

Vanimórë followed her gaze. “The cloud?” He shrugged. “Malantur cannot control the weather, unless he is stronger than ever he was under Sauron. That is possible, I suppose, but my guess is that it is the Earth itself, reacting to the sorcery he is practicing there. I cannot see within, but I think he cannot see out either.”

“The Lady's Veil,” Beleg murmured, endorsing Vanimórë's conjecture. “So we named it, and said that the Mother covered things unholy from the sight of her children. I have seen it before, and it is not unlike the mists that lay over Nan Dungortheb.”

“Ah. Yes.” Aredhel nodded and turned away, not fearfully, but as if she had seen all she wished for the moment. Having silenced or outmaneuvered the objections to her part in the forthcoming raid, apart from the continuing protests by her son, she was now preparing. They all were.  
There had been some discussion about where Vanimórë would make his camp while he waited for them, and they decided to head west to the North Downs. The hills harboured many springs, and there was more shelter than on this rolling moorland.

Zeva endured the ride better than they had hoped. When informed of their plans, he had struggled with himself, then looked north, apparently reassured by how far away Carn Dûm was. He said in his native tongue that there were people in the fortress who were little better than slaves: old women in the kitchens, and some elderly men. He had seen no children, and no younger woman.

“We cannot expect them to fight,” Elladan stated. “They may, but we can be certain they are afraid for their lives, and the lives of those they love.”

“Wh-where are the younger M-Men?” Elgalad wondered. “Would they all h-have died in battle?”

“It is quite likely,” Elrohir said. “They are a brave people.”

“The women would have fought,” Aredhel told them.

“Orcs take women, and young men too.” Vanimórë's voice came hard. “They would have fought _if they could,_ until they were disarmed.”

“Why would they not have killed themselves?” she demanded, suddenly coming to her feet. “Surely death is more to be desired than _that?_ ”

I am sure some did,” he said, stone and steel over memories. “Before Malantur came. But he wants the women alive, and there are ways: Sorcery perhaps, drugs certainly. And the desire to survive is very strong.”

Zeva's cheeks bloomed. Coldagnir, seeing it, touched his arm wordlessly.

“I thought,” the youth said quietly, “I though that I heard swordplay at times. Men's voices. Not my people.” He realized that he was speaking in his own tongue and began again haltingly, in Westron.

“So there may be some Men of Angmar,” Elladan mused. “I would like to think so. Thank-you, Zeva. If there is anything else you remember...?” he left question hanging lightly.

The big, honey-coloured eyes rose, and something broke in them. Zeva spoke, and they listened.  
His words came like gouts of black water from a broken gutter. He told of the tower where the sorcerer slept, the cavernous kitchens, the passage he had followed to the dreadful temple and, on a hard stammer, what he had seen there. Elladan drew on a piece of vellum, following the youth's description, from the time he had come to Carn Dûm through its vast broken gates. There was much he had not seen, virtually a prisoner, but everything he recalled was useful.

Gently, Elrohir took him back to his first sight of Carn Dûm, and Zeva closed his eyes to summon the memories. They hurt, and he struggled dreadfully to control his voice. Elrohir fell silent, giving him time, and after a while Elladan took up the questions. Thus back and forth they assisted the youth in this most necessary purging. Vanimórë knew what they were doing: they addressed Zeva as if he were a warrior, a young man whom had fought in a great battle, no matter that he had been an enemy. What numbers, how were they armed? How long did it take to reach the kitchens, how many people worked there, how many air-shafts could he remember, from whence the unearthly sounds had drifted up? Could he guess what men were there by choice or who was compelled, and were there some who might turn on Malantur if offered the chance to escape? In this way, they gave him back his pride, and accorded him honour due to him.

It was beautifully contrived, and yet there was absolute sincerity in it. The twins were not humoring Zeva; they had listened to Vanimórë speak of the Rayabi and taken note. Moment by moment, Zeva gained worth in his own eyes by seeing it in theirs. He sat a little straighter. It would take a long time before he recovered, and unlikely he would ever again be the same. He had returned from death, Vanimórë believed, and it would mark him for the rest of his life.

After, they gave him wine, for he was shaking. The others went a little away to survey Elladan's brief sketch, and to talk. Elgalad watched Vanimórë kneel beside Zeva, heard his quiet: “I thank thee. I know that was not easy.”

The youth bent his head, nodded, fighting the tears that Elgalad knew he was ashamed to shed, and Vanimórë allowed him to gather his dignity. He understood the young man's need for it. How not? Zeva had wept, screamed out his horror and fear. Now he needed to rebuild himself from the soul outward. There would be encouragement and understanding, but Zeva, like every-one who had been misused, would use that to shore up his torn and blooded life himself. Only then would he regain some of the pride that had been stripped from him.

Vanimórë raised his eyes, beckoned, and Elgalad crossed to him. He knew, without words what was required of him. Vanimórë smiled as Elgalad sat beside Zeva and, a little haltingly, began to tell him of his own capture by wolfshead men, so that the young man might come to accept that sometimes it did not matter how skilled one was in arms, nor how brave, one could still be defeated.  
Over Zeva's head, the grey and the purple eyes met.

~~~

Elgalad had woken beside Coldagnir, with the remnants of a dream clinging to him; fragments, a dusting of blossom that could be brushed away by the sweep of a hand. Shadows remained, wings passing over his mind: titan walls, a darkness that seethed with power, a sense of oppression. Slowly they feathered into nothing, leaving only the knowledge of that night. Elgalad felt no guilt, but emotions began to fill him up as if his body were a cup. There was sorrow and anger, frustration, and leavening it all a deep pity.

 _Didst thou watch?_ Elgalad wondered, finding the thought arousing.

 _I did not._

That was all he said. He had brought them meat and bread, a skin of mead, and walked away.

“I thank thee.” Coldagnir's expression, like Vanimórë's, held an odd conjecture.

“I p-possessed thee.” Try as he might Elgalad could not control the blush. Coldagnir looked magnificent in the dawn, hair like a wind-pour of scarlet on the grass, flesh glinting opalescent. Why had there been the memory of revulsion?  
“We wanted it, b-both of us, and I cannot say I d-did it _for_ thee. I d-do not see how it can h-help, but I am not ashamed.”

Coldagnir tilted his head, smiling a little whimsically.  
“Thinks't thou Vanimórë is not jealous?” he asked, startling Elgalad, although he knew he should not be surprised. Coldagnir had powers; either that or he was perfectly transparent.

“One would n-not know it,” he replied, rueful, and Coldagnir leaned forward and touched his fingertips to Elgalad's cheek, very gently.  
“He is,” he said. “Of course he is. He is afraid of his powers.”

“I am n-not.” Elgalad hesitated. “How feelest thou?”

Coldagnir's glowed as if a lamp-wick were turned up within, and perhaps, thought Elgalad, the idea was not ridiculous.

“Beautiful,” the Maia whispered. “Thou canst not know. There is something _wonderful_ about thee.”

At that moment, Elgalad wanted him again and Coldagnir saw it. Perhaps they would have gone down together on the cool ground, had Coldagnir not drawn away, decided for some inscrutable reason, not to bring Elgalad to that point again, and Elgalad was both relieved and sorry for it.

“I do not want,” Coldagnir sighed, “to hurt him more deeply, either.”

There it was. And then came a wave of shame. Elgalad had gone to Coldagnir _knowing_ that it would injure the man he loved. He could not summon milky excuses, but he would not become the Maia's lover with those deep-wounded violet eyes knowing what he did, even what he experienced, every time gazed into his own.

“Art thou still afraid?” He came to his feet, gathering handfuls of hair, thinking of Coldagnir's words: _They are all there. All of them. Waiting, always waiting for some-one to open the door with blood._ The thought had insinuated itself into his mind like the fogs that enwrapped Carn Dûm.

“Nothing can ease my fear,” the Balrog told him quietly. “Last night was not an attempt to forget. Last night was ... _good._ ”

 _Good._ Coldagnir's tone on the last word seemed to infer an act of graciousness. For Elgalad it had been passionate and marvelous, natural as breathing. Not once, not twice nor thrice had he filled and hardened, and the night had contracted to heat, the slam of flesh against flesh, the slide of hair that clung to sweat, the unmatchable release of thudding orgasm. And yet, there had been something...

“Superb,” Coldagnir kissed him, luxuriously, and the thought frayed. “More than I had dared hope.”

“I do n-not see how it could help thee.” Elgalad responded instinctively, and the other smiled against his throat, then dusted it with soft laughter.  
“I know thou canst not see it, but _ah!_ it has.”

Elgalad walked to the little stream, let the water play about his calves before kneeling to wash. The scent of sex was on his skin, and he did not find the salt-musk odor objectionable, but rather a pleasant reminder. The current bore it away, but the memories remained.

The camp was stirring, the sun breasting the distant Towers of Mist. Coldagnir was already there. He appeared strangely alone, a little uncertain now, as he gazed at Vanimórë, talking quietly to Aredhel and Maeglin. When Vanimórë did not look up, Coldagnir turned to where oats bubbled in a pot, and took a bowl to where Zeva was stirring under his blankets.

Elgalad did not know what to do or say. No-one eyed him with prurient interest. Beleg only smiled sweetly, and the twins lifted their hands in greeting before returning to a private, silent conversation. When Vanimórë came toward him, Elgalad stood motionless, his breath stilled in his mouth. Quite suddenly, he wanted to weep, not for himself, not for Coldagnir, but for this man.

“Come,” was all Vanimórë said, resting a hand on his back. When they were a little way from the camp he turned, took Elgalad's face between his hands and lifted it.  
And that shook his tears free. They blurred his vision, and his throat constricted. Even as he heard Vanimórë whisper: “Hush, my dear,” he shook his head violently, and then he was kissing that beautiful, hard and tormented face, locking his arms about the slim waist, besieging Vanimórë with love until the steely wall shattered.

Eru! he had such a lovely mouth, so opulent, so _giving._ He always kissed like a generous man too long starved of love. It was a like kissing a storm, a landslide of fire and silk. Despite the night just passed, Elgalad burgeoned, and pushed his hips against the answering rigidity under Vanimórë's breeches. This time, he did not ask for more; he was too sensitized to the rythyms of desire. When Vanimórë loosed him, held them together, Elgalad braced his legs, feeling the hard glide of his hand and _watched._ He watched the dark tumescence of the joined heads, the liquid pearl from the tips to sleek the engorged shafts, until the rising of ecstasy closed his eyes and opened his lips in a gasping cry.  
Again, he came, and their seed mingled. When he could breathe, when he could see, he drew Vanimórë's hand to his mouth, and licked it off. He savored the essence on his tongue, joined their lips and felt Vanimórë take the taste from him.

“Thou art dangerous.” His voice came rough and dark, woodsmoke, old wine. Elgalad rested his head in the warm hollow between Vanimórë's throat and shoulder.  
“Is my love dangerous?” he murmured, and heard the shaken laugh.

“To me, my dear, thy love is the most dangerous thing of all.”

~~~

The new encampment was pitched near a grove of birches, rough, lichened rocks, and a freshet that spilled down the last slope of the North Downs. It was a pleasant place. One might look south and see the the hills undulating into the distance, or west to the _Emyn Uial_ *, with cool Lake Nenuial glimmering at their feet. Cell, Carreg and Ness had fled that way from Angmar before ultimately finding themselves nigh to the Grey Havens. It was a land of ruins, a land of legend, and no legend more dark than the one that crouched in the north, wrapped in cerements of clouds. Yet, beneath the birches that whispered to the wind, it was almost possible to forget Angmar. They camped in in the lee of the trees, where Zeva did not have to simply look up to the smudged horizon, knowing what lay there.

As for the others, Coldagnir was thoughtful, Beleg calm as a mild evening, Elladan and Elrohir beginning to tighten like twin bowstrings. Maeglin was restless and angry, and Aredhel resolute. There would have to be some accommodation between them, Vanimórë thought. There was no room for dissent if they were to go into Carn Dûm – and return alive.

Their plan was simple enough. From Zeva's words, it was clear that Malantur's breeding experiments were taking place under Carn Dûm, and that there had been ways leading up from the dens into the destroyed temple. The tower's collapse might offer some opportunities into the fortress, unless Malantur had placed more guards there, in which case the Elves would melt back into the mist and look for another way in.

Maeglin's fear and fury for his mother built like a storm through that evening and night, and in the end, he asked Vanimórë to enforce her remaining behind. Vanimórë refused. He knew this startled Maeglin, who was intelligent enough to see that Vanimórë held women in respect, but a respect that was heavily founded on protectiveness. He had never made any attempt to conceal it; Melkor and Sauron had always been able to see through him and, too, he believed there was was nothing shameful in his feelings, for all his masters had exploited the flaw that Vanimórë refused to see as a weakness.

Aredhel was living in a time and a place where she was permitted to make her own choices. She did not have to compromise, or navigate through the rigid bars of custom set in place by men. Vanimórë's instincts were to deny her this choice out of a desire to keep her safe, and she did not want that. He knew that in New Cuiviénen, Fingolfin, Fëanor and Glorfindel struggled as he did, against the conditioning of thousands of years, and so as Elgalad made love to Coldagnir in the fragrant night, Vanimórë had sought Dana's counsel.

 _What are thine own thoughts?_ she had responded.

 _It is about choice, is it not?_ he answered. _The fact that one has a choice at all, whether the choices we make are wrong or no._

Dana said: _Yes._

 _And Aredhel is a woman; thou doth want a woman to go into Carn Dûm._

 _There are other women in Carn Dûm, Vanimórë._ Her tone wove into vengeful darkness. _But none who were given a choice. Yea, I wish Aredhel to go in._

Now, Vanimórë related his conversation. Maeglin flung up a hand in defeat or despair. Aredhel's expression was intent. Both of them knew of Dana through Eöl.

“It is not only a matter of choice,” Maeglin said, and there was pain in his voice. “There is love.”

“I know,” his mother replied, the fires in her eyes banking themselves a little. “Thinks't thou I am not worried for _thee,_ my son. My Lómion.”

Perhaps it had not occurred to him. He gazed at her. Their eyes were a match, clear crystal-grey. He turned with a broken, frustrated laugh, and strode away.

 _They will watch her,_ Vanimórë told him. _All of them._

 _So shall I,_ Maeglin returned. _And thou knowest it may not be enough._

 _And it may be. Dana cannot – or will not – interfere, but perhaps she means Aredhel to survive. For all of thee to survive._

Vanimórë had considered this, and the truth was, he did not know. He could not yet think as Dana did, or any of the Ainur. Every soul born on the Earth was part of the Great Music, but the Mother's note wound through it from Arda's creation. She could watch the unfurling Ages as a Goddess watches, with disassociated remoteness. There had been a time when she had to, before she was woken again. But Vanimórë could not so detach himself. Perhaps he would never be able to.

 _That is little comfort,_ Maeglin told him.

But Dana spoke to him. Vanimórë felt her presence, so wrapped in ancient silence that of the others, only Coldagnir sensed her. When Maeglin returned, he took Aredhel away to talk to her privately, and if he did not look content, had come to a grim acceptance. Vanimórë did not ask him what the Mother had said; that was for Maeglin and Aredhel to know, but something in the atmosphere eased, as if Dana had settled her cloak over them. Even Elladan and Elrohir, with the memories of their own mother's capture and torment unfading, raised no more objections, and their thoughts focused entirely upon their mission. None of them save Aredhel were tyros, but of them all the Peredhil and Beleg had the greatest experience of this particular form of warfare. Coldagnir, it appeared, could come close to Carn Dûm, though that in itself concerned Vanimórë in the light of Malantur's practices, and Coldagnir's own fears. He was not sure that the Balrog should approach Carn Dûm again unless it was absolutely necessary. Anyhow, the Mouth might sense a Maia far more easily than he would sense an Elf. There was, however, _something_ that Coldagnir could do, which would draw Malantur's attention and that of his warriors away for a time.

“Of course,” he said, when Vanimórë suggested it.

Few things draw the attention more than fire, after all.

~~~

He had been called something else once, under Saruman. Now he named himself simply the Lion, after the great beast he had glimpsed in the wizard's menagerie. Not the largest of Saruman's experiments, he was swifter than any, and exceptionally strong. He was also curious, with a sense of independence that had angered his master. Until he learned not to, he questioned. Several brutal whippings showed him the wisdom of keeping his own council, but did not cow him.

Later, when Saruman, in an attempt to pacify the Dark Lord, sent him to Mordor so that Sauron might examine him, Lion effected his escape, sparing those who preferred freedom to death. He had to wound two of them to drive his point home as it were. Saruman or Sauron, it made no difference; he would still be a slave, albeit an unusual one. For Lion was unique: his dam was Mortal, his sire Uruk-hai, giving him more Mannish blood than orcish. If there had been any other successful unions, he did not know of it. He had nursed from his dying mother's teats, then eaten her corpse, blood mingling with milk, as was the way in Saruman's breeding dens.

In the pens where the young Uruk-hai were raised, only the strongest survived. Saruman had no use for the weak. But Lion learned fast, becoming expert at killing with his hands and teeth, his favored weapons. He remembered the _Fireblack_ , cold but burning as it went down, that lashed the Uruk-hai to blood-madness, the taste of it in his gullet, the rage that took him, the howls of the dying. There was pleasure in it, but he preferred to be clear-headed. His followers carried skins of _Fireblack_ , but he himself had not tasted it since Isenguard.

He found the wild country between the rivers Greylin and Langwell much to his liking. There were scattered homesteads, Men pasturing goats and sheep. Unlike the mountain-orcs, Lion knew it was foolish to raid and kill, for that would eventually cut off the food supply, and the Northmen were fierce fighters, even the smallest holding fenced with great timber stockades. No, Lion had ambitions to become more than a bandit. He would rule his own hall, gather men and women to him in fear and fealty, become a chieftain, perhaps more. The orcs could swill in the guts of the mountains; they were of no use to him if they only ventured forth under cloud and the dark of night. He needed half-orcs, or better, Men.

He found a place to begin, a hall of stone and timber deserted he guessed, many years before. Perhaps it was too remote and had been raided by orcs, even trolls, but Lion feared neither. His fellows were handy, and all had laboured in Isenguard. The hall was almost repaired when bands of orcs began to stream west, running from a dark vengeance. Lion captured some, and made them talk before killing them, thus learning of the war, the downfall of Sauron and Saruman. Of the one from whom the orcs fled, he knew nothing. He could feel _something_ though, and hated that he had always been able to sense such things, for it spoke to him of his orcish roots, and Lion called himself a Man. Never a fool, he conceded that any quibble regarding his ancestry would hardly spare him, if whatever followed the orcs found him, and for many days he withdrew to a rough camp in the foothills of the mountains. But the danger passed – for a while.

He would not have called the second intrusion into his new life a danger, save that he sensed darkness. The first one had been like an obsidian dagger, all black-burning purpose. This one reeked like Saruman's cess-pools.  
For a while, he and his warriors observed the Man and the soldiers with him. There were too many for Lion to take, which was a pity, as their weapons would have been useful. He pondered an ambush, offering terms of surrender if the Men would follow him, but even as he mulled it over, he saw the leader lift his head, and a sliver of red pain pierced his brain. It was not unlike Saruman's power.  
Balked and angry, he was preparing to pull back, let the Men go by, when the voice sounded in his mind.

 _Come down. Let us talk._

There was a command in the words; again familiar, but Lion had no intention of obeying.

 _Let us not,_ he thought.

But he listened withal, for this Man, the Mouth of Sauron, offered him power and position – and more. Lion did not believe him, but he was intrigued. The Mouth spoke of breeding. He knew what Lion was, what would tempt him.  
They met at last, two guards at their backs. The Mouth seemed impressed by Lion's caution, and surprised by his appearance. Lion was accustomed to that. He did not look like an Uruk-hai, with his fair skin, tawny hair and eyes, devolving, he supposed, from his dam. Two things only gave the lie to his Mannish appearance: his teeth were white and straight, save for the feline incisors that he used to deadly effect, and his hands bore sharp talons.

“Nothing for nothing,” the Mouth had murmured. “Or something for something. Thou couldst rise high, if thou art clever enough to seize the opportunity.”

“You offer only another kind of slavery.” Lion did not hide his sneer. Saruman had been more powerful than this Man, but the Mouth was not to be dismissed. They knew of him in Isenguard.

“Power.”

Lion allowed himself to smile cynically.  
“Why would you offer me such a thing?” And the Man reached out, as if to stroke his face. The white incisors gleamed in warning. One of those. Lion himself had rutted with both males and females, but there were some whose touch was repugnant, as if deep within they were ashamed of their appetites. They were the kind who raped pups, who fondled, who worked themselves in dark corners. The Mouth was just such a one.

“Thou art interesting,” he said coolly, withdrawing his hand. “Perhaps it is mere chance, but I have my own breeding plans. Thou art proof there can be more than Uruk-hai and orcs. There was another, once...Perhaps fate has brought us together.”

It was a mistake. Lion had chosen to be a Man, and who was going to dispute with him?  
“What can you give me that I cannot get for myself?” he asked baldly.

The Man's grey eyes glittered. “Immortal life,” he said.

Lion hissed a laugh. “Not possible,” he retorted, but thinking, _why?_.

“I am proof it is possible.”

“Maybe. But Sauron is gone,” Lion pointed out. “Perhaps you will slowly die now. You do not have his power.”

The Man's lips compressed. Ah. A shiver of fear. The stench of it in his sweat. The Lion would remember that.

“I know how to gather power, _orcblood._ ”

Cat-like, Lion snarled, and his warriors tensed. The two Men seized their weapons – suddenly, the Mouth began to laugh, a sound like sliding oil.

“Let this not get ugly.” He raised a hand, and the Men paused, hands on swords. Lion eyed them contemptuously. The slime bleeding from the Mouth had infected them. Both had that look of over-ripe corruption. The one with the face of an emaciated horse was sweating. He looked away.

“It is already ugly.” Lion said pointedly.

“No Man can resist immortality. I could not.”

“So. How is it accomplished?”

The Mouth smiled. “Saruman taught thee large words, I see. And thou hath doubts. So did I, a long time ago.”

“Hah! A few! You are moon-mad, Man.” Lion unfolded himself and came to his feet, looking down at the Mouth, who rose himself, unnaturally pale skin flushed. They were of a height.

“I was born in the downfallen West.” The Man's mouth compressed. “Sauron is gone, but I live. Thousands of years I served him. I know what he did to give me unaging life. I know how he... _accomplished_ it. It is in the blood.”

Blood-magic...

“And,” the Mouth continued, “There is no blood more fit for the purpose than the blood of an Elf. There is a whole forest of them yonder.”

“Yes, I know.” Lion had never seen an Elf, but he had heard of them, and their scent had come to him as he passed the seemingly endless margin of the forest, wild and sweet. But only a fool would venture into that ancient wood. Immortality was useless to a dead man.

“And sometimes they come out.” Still that smile, rank as sewage. “The lifespan of an Elf. Think of what thou couldst do. If you find one, bring them to me.”

“If I just happen to chance on an Elf, be sure I will,” Lion said with mockery. “Or perhaps I should just bite one, if the blood will make me immortal.” He raised his brows. One of the Uruk-hai snickered.

“There are many rituals and spells involved. Bring me and Elf and I will show thee. Angmar is just the beginning.” The Mouth leaned close. His breath was an exhalation of sour apples. “Thou art carrying _Fireblack_ , yes? All _orcs_ do so. I can smell it.”  
He jerked his head toward the Uruk-hai. One of them had taken down a bear this morning after a mouthful of the black liquid.  
“On Elves it has a disabling effect. It makes them dazed. I have seen it. It is one of the few ways to capture them alive. Remember it. And remember this too: Thou wilt not last long here. The Men will never follow thee, never accept thee, and both Men and Elves will hunt thee down if they come to know of thee. And they will, if thou art as ambitious as I believe thee to be. I offer far more than a hovel in the hills.”

“Is this something you offer all those who follow you?” Lion glanced at the two Men. _Yes. There is hunger in them._

“Only those who prove themselves worthy will sip the chalice of immortality.” And then in his mind: _And I think thou shalt prove worthy indeed. We need one another._

They left Lion with a rough map, and went on their way. He watched until he was sure they were gone. Immortality. Even Saruman had known of the Mouth. His longevity was no myth, but if Elven-blood was the secret, no wonder so few gained it. Lion stared east toward the forest, then shrugged. Promises were easy to make, just mouthings. He would forget the Mouth of Sauron, he told himself. ~

~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Emyn Uial ~ The Hills of Evendim.


	24. ~ Elvenblood ~

  
~ Winter was a difficult time. Neither orcs or Uruk-hai were overly troubled by the cold, but game grew thinner, and Lion was forced to hunt ever further afield. Spitting skinny sheep or goats over a fire in the hall surrounded by Uruk-hai arguing, rutting and, at times, fighting, was not what Lion had envisaged for himself. But what had he expected? Uruk-hai were bred and raised to kill; husbandry was beneath them, and inactivity, at least without food and strong drink, did not suit their natures. Lion was forced to make examples of two of them, but in the deepest part of winter, when he was away hunting, five of them raided an isolated homestead. They lost two, another died later, and one would never walk without a limp.

Lion might have appreciated the plunder more had he not walked among the smoking ruins and known that sooner or later, Men would investigate. There were seven bodies, or what had been bodies, before they were eaten. Two were small children. Lion felt no regret, no compunction, but it was stupid and wasteful. Men did not travel far in the winter, but the fire would have been visible, and these lonely holdings looked out for one another. He had the Uruk-hai haul back the salted meat, sacks of flour and grain, skins of mead and barrels of dark ale, and did his best to cover their tracks. He was aided by a fresh snowfall, which would give him time, but come the spring, or an interval of milder weather, the neighbouring homesteads would investigate and realize there was a new threat in the high hills.

The Uruk-hai boasted over their cups of slaughtering any who came after them, but Lion knew it was not so simple. He had not intended to begin his new life with pillage. No Man would deal with him now, though perhaps they never would have. Even Saruman's dark Dunlanders had looked on the Uruk-hai with contempt under the fear.  
The Uruk-hai themselves were pleased. Those who had died were cursed and then toasted, with black, sidelong looks at their leader. And he cursed too, silently. He could not, he realized, become a chieftain here, and nowhere with the Uruk-hai.

In the nights when the north wind whipped the hall, and the fires burned blue at the edges, Lion found himself pondering the words of the Mouth of Sauron. Lion was intelligent, and had received more teaching from Saruman than any other of his successful breeding experiments, so he knew a little history and had heard the name of Angmar. Although he could not read or write, he had a good head for calculation and could read maps by interpreting the natural features of the land. Angmar, he judged, was about one hundred leagues away, and by the look of it, was on the edge of the ice, but the lands further south were scarce-peopled, perhaps rich. They had once been part of Arnor, he vaguely recalled. There was room to move there, unlike here, caught between the Elven forest and the mountains, and there might be Men.  
The Mouth had spoken of breeding, and it would indeed be good to breed with a woman, to get offspring. He was not impotent, and there was no reason why his seed would not grow inside a Mortal woman's belly. But if he were immortal, he could father a tribe, become more powerful than the Uruk-hai or orcs could ever imagine.

 _Nothing for nothing,_ the Mouth had said. And therein lay the problem. If he journeyed to Angmar, he wanted to make an impression. His few Uruk-hai would be something but not enough.

Immortality.  
 _Elvenblood._

The orcs spoke of Elves with hatred, fear and lust intermingled. Lion had never seen an Elf, but he imagined some deadly, beautiful creature. Elves could die, and many had in the old wars, but Lion wagered it would be easier to kill one than to capture one alive. Yet the Mouth had also mentioned the effect of _Fireblack,_ on an Elven constitution; a disabled Elf would be easy enough to handle, but getting close enough to force one to ingest the _Fireblack_ seemed impossible.

Lion began to roam within days of the attack on the holding, taking only two of the Uruk-hai with him. Oxblood was named because he did indeed look as if there was a bull somewhere in his ancestry. His neck was so muscled and massive that his shoulders seemed to begin under his ears, and he over-topped Lion by a head. Withal, he was slow-witted and a born follower who regarded any-one more clever than he with a kind of awe. He was the closest thing to a peaceable Uruk-hai the Lion had ever encountered, and was happy enough to eat, drink and lay himself in front of a fire. Vixen could not have been more different. She was lean, black-skinned with reddish hair twisted into ropes. The smallest of his followers she was, after him, the most dangerous, and he suspected she was just as intelligent, though too quick of temper. She favored knives and a horn bow, and was swift to use both. Female Uruk-hai could be more deadly than the males, and no-one laid a hand on her lest they lose it. Vixen had shown white teeth at the name he bestowed on her, and sometimes shared his skins. If there was such a thing as an attractive Uruk-hai, she was one, with her pointed chin, large brown eyes and glossy skin. Lion appreciated that, but her wits and skills more. While she was capable of betrayal, he believed she would not do so unless he gave her good reason.

They reconnoitered when the weather permitted it, finding a south-facing cave near the headwaters of the the Langwell, and returned time and again after Lion slew the great bear that had denned there. Gradually they made it their outpost, carrying supplies from the hall. It was a refuge if they needed one, Lion told the others, daring any to challenge why he appropriated mead and salted mutton. They did not. He knew that when he was away they would be planning to raid another holding, needing the violence as much as the booty. They had no larger vision. They enjoyed their freedom, but they were the _fighting Uruk-hai_ ,* and if there was no enemy to fight, they would eventually turn on one another. The kill was good, the taste of fresh blood as intoxicating as _Fireblack_ , but a Man needed more, and could imagine _far_ more.

The Men came in the Spring when small flowers were waking in the high valleys, and the snow shrugging upward toward the highest peaks of the mountains. Lion was not there. With Vixen and Oxblood, he had left for the cave after a spell of rain. On his return Vixen smelled smoke.

The burning was some days old. There was no scent or sign of Men close by, and the ravens had already begun feasting on the severed heads of the Uruk-hai mounted on spears outside the broken hall doors as if in warning. The bodies had been piled and fired, but the wind and wet had doused the flames, leaving scorched carcasses. All were dead. The fight must have been savage, and there would have been deaths among the Men too, Lion doubted not, but any corpses had been borne away. Men did not leave their dead unless their was no other choice.

Vixen spat disgustedly at one gape-jawed head.  
“Nothing for us here,” she said in her husky voice and, as Oxblood threw back his head, preparing for the Death-shout of mourning, she scored his arm with her talons and hissed: “Silence, oaf. The sound will carry!” Oxblood's chest deflated, and he shambled into the hall to root among the ruins.

“Anything in there, Ox?” Lion called, but softly, and the huge Uruk-hai emerged, shaking his head.

“Angmar then, is it?” Vixen leapt to the roof in one vulpine movement, scanning the distances. There had been fire in the hall too, though most of the walls were untouched.

“You heard the Mouth,” he shrugged. “What he wanted.”

“Jesting,” she said. “He'd take you without a bloody Elf, but I don't trust the bastard.” She jumped back down, shaking her head. “Nothing. Been and gone.”

“What would you do for immortality?” he asked curiously.

“Kill my own father,” she grinned.

“You _did_ kill your own father.”

“Kill you, then.” She circled him, hands close to her daggers, wary and dangerous. “You think it possible, or a mad sorcerer's lies? You know what he wants you for. He is worse than Sharkey.** Missing the touch of the Master's whip, are you?”

The snarl grew in his throat. “I gave you a choice. What were you before but a slave? Stay or go, it is nothing to me.”

Vixen strode the perimeter of the compound.  
“A choice. Hah. Choices cut both ways.” She flicked a hand at the row of heads. “They had choices.”

“They were fools, and greedy.”

She shrugged again. “Not fit for this life.” Again the wave of a hand that encompassed the little corrie, the hills rising beyond, the frowning mountains at their back. Beyond, far away, lay Angmar.

It was true, Lion thought. Orcs were tribal by nature. The crowded warmth of their dens providing both protection and comfort. Orcs separated from their clan tended to die if they did not find themselves another tribe to join, and they would have to fight to be accepted. The Uruk-hai were different, but not by much, and Saruman had bred them for war. Even Vixen was, deep inside, missing the thronging pits, the warmth, the vicious struggles for supremacy and status.

“I go to the cave,” he said.

They came, Vixen, in part because she was curious, Oxblood because he had nowhere else to go, and he was, in his own way, mourning his brothers.

“The way I see it is this,” Vixen said unexpectedly the next morning, as they looked out of the cave mouth and into the blue distances. “The Mouth of Sauron seeks to become a power. But he was running from something.”

It was one of the reasons Lion had chosen her as a guard at the meeting between himself and the Mouth. Vixen did not miss much.

“He stank of fear,” Lion agreed. “But he does have power.”

“If what he said were true...” She swallowed mutton, washed it down with a gulp of mead. “If we proved ourselves to him...”

“There were not many with him,” Lion mused.

“Hmm.” Vixen nodded. “Dangling immortality before us? That's just bait.”

She wanted status, Lion knew. So did he. He turned his head to Oxblood.

“If the Lion and the Vixen go, I go,” the huge Uruk said.

They waited, scouting up past the marshy watershed of the river, where the mountains raked white claws at the western sky. There was a pass up there, the Mouth had said, and it was marked on the map. Vixen's sharp eyes discerned a narrow saddleback between two peaks, but they waited until Spring was ripe, saving the salt meat for the journey, and eating fresh game. Oxblood would carry the bulk of the supplies uncomplainingly so long as he might eat and drink when he was hungry and thirsty.

Lion did not trust the Mouth any more than he had trusted Saruman, whom had been willing to hand him over to Mordor. Lion had, in fact, wondered if the Dark Lord meant to experiment on him, take him apart long and painfully to study him, and it was that fear which lay behind his escape. If he were truthful with himself, he feared that the Mouth might likewise want to examine him, but the Man had few followers, and Lion knew he could defend himself. He would have to be careful, and show the Mouth from the outset that he had no intention of becoming a slave. In the end, it was a risk, but everything he had done since leaving Isenguard had been a risk. Lion knew his worth, and feared no orc or Man.

They made their first camp in the dark hours, high up, a wind blowing cold from the south-east, teething the rocks and mingling with the lonely sound of waters. They had passed one or two caves during the climb and on examining them, realized they were tunnels, perhaps leading to the warrens of Mount Gundabad, that massive peak that dominated the north. There was a faint smell of orcs, but it was old. Lion had no fear of narrow places, but he did not know Gundabad, and would rather go over the pass than through the mountain. Nevertheless when it began to rain, icy and stinging, Lion decided to make camp in the mouth of one of the tunnels. They lit no fire, but some swallows of mead chased down the salt meat and they were content. Vixen went a little way down the tunnel, but came back to report she could hear nothing, and doubted the place had been used for a long time. Lion thought the same, but took the first watch, Oxblood the midwatch and Vixen the last. She woke him in the grey of dawn.

“Orcs,” she said curtly.

He could already hear them. They were heading up the pass.

“Down,” he motioned to them to lie flat. “Ox, get back in the cave. Wait.”

The rain had stopped during the night, and the wind blown itself out. Mist hung down from the bellies of low clouds. The air lightened, so that the clot of moving darkness began to take on individual shapes. Lion put up his hands and gestured _five._ It was a small group. Orcs rarely traveled in companies of so few. They were large, not the mountain-breed, if he were any judge.

As they came closer, he nodded to himself. Mordorian black Uruks, and in the last stages of exhaustion. The sound of their ragged breathing came harsh, their steps stumbled. They smelled of blood, old sweat, and did not even spare a glance upward to where the three watched. One of them suddenly fell headlong, sprawled, and lay still. The others ignored him, trampling him in their haste, making toward the cave.

Lion swore, and reached for his bow. Three arrows sang, and then another. The uruks died. It was that or pitched battle; they had been in no mood to stop and talk.

The mist swirled. Lion listened, heard nothing, The air was heavy and cold and silent. He motioned for Oxblood to stay, but Vixen was beside him as he leaped down.

The Uruk that had been trampled was alive but unconcious, and the wound he bore, that had presumably brought him down, surprised Lion. It was high in the meat of the shoulder, and if tended, should not have been mortal, but the flesh around it was powdered and grey, like the dust on a moth's wings.

“Arrow,” Vixen said puzzledly and sniffed, then drew back nostrils flaring. It was pungent enough to make the eyes water, rot, sweetness, and something potent as _Fireblack,_ clean as snowmelt. Her teeth showed.  
 _Poison._ But nothing Lion was familiar with.

“What were they running from?” he wondered.

“Let me find out.” At the turn of Vixen's dagger the Uruk roared back to brutal consciousness. His eyes widened as if staring at something beyond them.

“What did this?” she asked.

The Uruk convulsed. Lion coolly uncorked the small skin of _Fireblack_ which hung at his side, and sloshed a little over the wound. The uruk screamed, and fell back, breathing in pants.

“What did this?” Vixen repeated.

“Elf.” His eyes unfocussed. Heat emanated from his body in palpable waves.

“Where?” Lion demanded.

The Uruk shuddered.

“ _Where?_ ”

“Close to the woods.” His claws scraped the bed of stone.

Lion tipped the skin to his mouth, saw the _Fireblack_ dribble from his jaws, and the effect as it hit his stomach. It would not save him, Lion had seen enough death to know that, but it could relieve pain, and make him more lucid for a short time.

“Saw some. A few, camped, singing, rutting...”

Little more they learned before the creature died, but Lion pieced it together later, and thought he could see the whole tale.

The Uruks had been scratching a living the Ash Mountains, Mordor's northern fence. Pickings were thin, and so they had journeyed west, thinking to become chieftains of the mountain-orcs, but found few under Gundabad. Why had they not stayed in Mordor, Lion wondered, and guessed that even Sauron's Uruks might not choose to remain there. The north was ash and dust, he had heard. Even a rat could not survive there.  
The Uruks passed the northern fringe of the great forest, never coming close enough to see any of its inhabitants, but knowing well enough who and what dwelled there.  
Lion realized that the thought of the Elves had exercised a slow fascination on the Uruks. The dying beast called them _the white slayers_. Every orc and Uruk-hai knew the legend that there was Elven and Mortal blood in the orcs. Whatever the truth of it, the Mordor creatures had, it appeared, been unable to resist making the long trek down the foothills, where the land was richer, the game fatter, and where the Elves lived like shadows in the immense forest. They had not been stupid enough to enter the trees, but just four days ago had come on something irresistible: a small company of Elves out under the sky. Some Elves had died in the ensuing fight, but so had most of the Uruks. They had escaped back to their camp in the foothills, but the Elves followed. Had it not been for the rain and hill-fog, the Uruks would never have got this far. The dying Uruk had been Elf-shot. That must explain the wound, thought Lion, taking the short sword and straightening. The light was growing slowly. Blowsy clouds trailed long skirts across the head of the pass. The wind would lift and chase them soon. Lion looked back toward the cave-mouth.  
And froze.

He had not heard the thing, it had been so silent. Lion had an impression of astonishing grace and beauty molded into the form of a man, but not a Mortal. There was something in the face and body that suggested the wind, the stars, the running waters had chosen to take on human shape. It was dressed in rich brown and deep green, and he saw a great snake of milky hair sway behind it, the crystalline glitter of green-gold eyes as it raised its bow.  
 _Elf,_ Lion thought, disbelieving.  
Oxblood moved out of the cave. The creature spun, arrow-range now reduced to less than an ell, and Ox slammed out a massive hand, knocking the too-close arrow aside.

“Don't kill it!” Lion cried, even as the creature drew a dagger so swiftly that one moment, the weapon was simply _there._ But Vixen had already begun moving, jumping up the rock like a hill-fox, and straight onto the Elf's back. Then Lion was there, seizing its wrist, and Oxblood's great fist hammered into the point of the Elf's jaw.

Ever after, Lion did not know how they had accomplished what they did. Without the _Fireblack_ and Oxblood's unflagging strength, without Vixen's scouting skills, they would have failed.

There would be more than one Elf, he was sure, and so they had gone into the tunnel. It lead east, which was the direction he wanted to go, and he felt, though he did not know, that Elves would mislike the grots under the mountains. He took the precaution, after they had run for some little time without hearing pursuit, of binding the unconscious Elf and trickling _Fireblack_ between its lips. It appeared the Mouth of Sauron had not lied, for the potion caused the creature to gasp, say something in a liquid tongue, then fall back into a stupor. Oxblood, slung it back over one massive shoulder like a sack of flour, complaining about the smell.

There _was_ a scent. It was not dissimilar to that which had clung to the dead Uruk's wound, but without the black rot of decaying flesh. Lion did not think it unpleasant. It was something like flowers, or water bubbling from a freshet, like moss and autumn apples, cool flowers drenched by spring rain. But only when they stopped to eat and drink, did they examine the creature closely.

They were far under the pass now, Vixen informed him, as she took a swig of mead. Her sense of direction was uncanny. They had passed other openings, but she never paused to choose, or seemed uncertain. The tunnels were clearly ancient, worn smooth by the passage of orcs over hundreds or thousands of years, but now they were quiet, deserted.

The Elf was awake, but his eyes were vague, and there was a bruise on his jaw. Lion was surprised that it was not broken, but he realized that the look of delicacy was deceiving. The creature was slim, but it was all taut muscle, and its shoulders were wide and flat. It wore jewelry; pearls and cloudy orange beads were bound into the great braid of hair, and climbed the pointed ear to its tip. A pendant hung under its tunic, an interlocking design of flowers and leaves around and between the curved necks of two white birds. Swans? Saruman had liked the taste of roast swan. Vixen had the chain over the Elf's head in an instant, and the creature reached out to grope after it, but Oxblood pushed him back down. Vixen dropped it over her own head and smoothed a thumb over the jewels.

“It's a male,” she stated feeling the creature's groin with her other hand. Its cock was flaccid, but she was right. There were no dugs. The chest was hard and flat.

“I care not what it is,” Lion said. “Now all we have to do is keep it alive long enough to get to Angmar.”

Keeping it alive did not prove difficult. The Elf was as tougher than an Uruk-hai, and unbelievably strong. Too strong. Lion was forced to tie it in a way that would strangle it if it tried to escape, for he was sure it would kill them all if it got free, and without much trouble. Only judicious amounts of _Fireblack_ kept it dazed enough to be manageable. Afraid that too much might poison it, Lion erred on the side of caution. But Black Gods, they had been lucky! It had obviously been pursuing the fleeing Uruks, and they had surprised it. He would hate to be hunted by such a silent, deadly thing.  
Sometimes, the Elf would speak; the same three words over and over, as if trying to cling to his identity. Lion did not understand the language, for which he was glad. He knew the tales: The orcs said that if they were slain by the Elves, their souls would be captured and be reborn in Elven bodies. Maybe it was superstition, but looking at the thing, Lion was uncertain. Its eyes were green-and-gold stars. He could well imagine it had unchancy powers, and was almost relieved to reach Angmar.  
It was not, in the end, hard to find. Vixen could smell the reek of sorcery.

  
~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Fighting Uruk-hai ~ Saruman's Uruk-hai called themselves this in The Two Towers. (book.)  
> ** Sharkey ~ The orcs name for Saruman.


	25. ~ Agar a Baneth ~

Carn Dûm was not unlike Orthanc, though the fortress was larger, a chain of immense towers clambering and clinging to the mountainside. There were many orcs, some men and Lion soon learned where the women were, or those of breeding age.

Lion did not object to rutting with the dark haired women of Angmar. They were comely. They were also vicious and half-mad. The Mouth did not like to kill his breeding stock, (if they died birthing, that was another matter.) but he would make examples of the older men and women to instil fear. His cruelty was legendary, and like his longevity, had not been exaggerated. Lion's sexual appetite was large, but he was accustomed to female Uruk-hai. Mortal women were softer, more fragile. Often they cried, though they did not fight, merely lay on their pallets, terrified. It was right they should fear him, he thought, but not in rut, which he enjoyed as he enjoyed food and drink. He had never needed to rape. He told the women this in the Common tongue. The bolder ones would glare and grit their teeth, looking as savage as Vixen, the others closing their eyes mutely, going inside themselves. Some never came out again. He had seen them, and would not mate with them.  
After a while, he began to take skins of mead with him. It bruised his pride, but he would rather have a woman relaxed than lying under him like a corpse, and they did not refuse when he offered it.

Vixen was not counted among the breeders, or not yet, and Lion knew she would breed when she was ready, not before. When the sorcerer learned she was a warrior, he gave her her own company of mountain-orcs, and Vixen was pleased enough. She still shared Lion's skins at times. He had a tower room now, and slaves at his call. Oxblood remained, doggedly loyal, at his side.

It was soon seen that Lion was fertile, and several of the women showed round bellies. The pups were healthy and well-formed, but the sorcerer was not content. At first, Lion's offspring thrived, but later some of them, like the other pups, began to twist. One arm or leg might not grow, the spine would deform, the teeth erupt too fast, forming fangs which shredded the cheek and lips. The womens cries of horror and grief were like nails in the flesh. These deformed pups soon vanished, and it took a while for Lion to discover what was happening to them. He had other duties beside siring children: training, drilling, scouting beyond the fortress, to Angmar's borders, and had had to show his strength to make his place here, the Mouth's favor notwithstanding. The orcs feared him, the Men loathed him, but the Lord Sorcerer, as the Mouth now called himself, did not like his Men killed without reason. Lion could and did make them respect him, however. Had he not always done so? Thus it was he did not know all the passages and hidden chambers below ground. It was one of the women that told him in the end. Lithil was dark-eyed, with big teats and curly hair the colour of peat. She could not have more than twenty summers. When first she had seen Lion, she screamed, but there was nowhere to run to. The rooms had once been cells, and ran each side of a wide passage, with a guard-room overlooking them. There was another door beyond, kept locked and shut. Lion had not been that way, and was not sure, for a time, if the door even opened.

Each woman had a pallet of heather, skins and two chamber-pots, emptied daily under the watchful eyes of the guards. Lion soon had Oxblood moved to the cells, arguing that he was strong and loyal.

“Loyal to thee, I have no doubt,” the Lord Sorcerer had said.

“Some things I learned at Isenguard,” Lion told him, concealing his distaste. He had seen the youth chosen by the Mouth, a pretty lad, all huge eyes and long legs. It fed the Man's ego, no doubt.  
“Saruman took women also. They are clever and desperate. Oxblood is strong as his name and has no imagination. They will not trick him, or be able to hurt him.”

The Man waved his hand. “Thinks't thou I do not know how to manage prisoners? I will consider it.”

And so Oxblood watched as the privy buckets were taken away and at feeding times. If a woman died, he carried the body out, and neither the weeping nor the curses troubled him.

Lithil had carried Lion's first child, and though he did not say so, he was proud that the babe looked so human. He wanted children, to father a tribe, and so he ensured the women he visited got a larger portion of food, goats milk and warm skins. Healthy women were more likely to whelp healthy babes, even an orc knew that. It was not however, cold in the cells, it was more dank and chill in his own tower-room. Indeed it became warmer the lower one went. There were furnaces deep under the levels Lion knew. One could see the smoke and steams rising from vents, ensuring that when it snowed, it rarely settled.

“Why?” he asked Lithil, after the child was gone. “He was born healthy.”

Her face was stony, turned away from him, but he saw her mouth quiver. She bit her lower lip and pointed to the right, toward the door at the end of the passage, the one he had never seen opened.

“They are taken,” she said, flat-voiced. “Down there. When they come back they begin to... _change._ Then they are taken again.”

  
“Thou doth want immortality,” the Lord Sorcerer said calmly, when Lion went to him in a rage. “This is all part of the process.”

“ _Is_ it?” he snarled, and red pain lashed across his eyes.

“Be patient,” the Man chided. “Thou shalt have it. In time.”

And then came the day of fire. Lion was not close to the temple tower when it was destroyed. He had seen it once, and that was enough. He observed no religious rites, as did some of the Eastern Men, and the Sorcerer most of all, but Melkor _had_ existed, even Saruman said so, and there was something too virulently alive in that statue's metal eyes.

There was a sound within the pillar of fire, a scream, a trump of hate and challenge. And there was power in it too. The fire drove upward into the low-bellied clouds like a spear, sending them reeling. Lion thought he saw a face within it, scarlet hair whipping across the sky, wings more vast than that of the fabled dragons cracking from horizon to horizon. The tower melted and ran like hot honey. It terrified all Carn Dûm, and interrupted the Lord Sorcerer's moondark rituals. No-one but his two most trusted guards saw him for days, and they were not the kind to talk. Lion wondered if the Dark God Himself had been at work there, or if the fortress were under attack. From the walls he could see nothing, though the clouds cleared for a time, so that the lands to the south showed far and green in the dawn.  
He thought a patrol should be sent out, and offered to go himself, but the Man Lion had dubbed Horseskull, told him that Oxblood was needed below the tower, where rubble had fallen. The huge Uruk would only obey an order from Lion, it seemed. Lion showed the Man an expressionless face, but interest quickened within him. He was not permitted down there, but neither had he been much interested until now. On his way, he called Vixen.

“Take a look,” he said quietly. “Your orcs can't go under this sun, but you can.”

She made a face. “We have no orders. Why don't you?”

“I _have_ orders. Not from Him, and I doubt there will be any for a while.” But he wanted to take this opportunity to see what lay below Carn Dûm, where his offspring had been taken, if Lithil were to be believed. “Whatever destroyed the temple came from without or within, and if it was the Dark God, the sorcerer is playing dangerous games.”  
 _Too dangerous for us_  
Vixen nodded imperceptibly.  
“I might.” She bent to pull on one of her boots, testing the dagger thrust within it. Lion knew she would go; she was curious as a cat. As she stooped, something tumbled, glinting, from the neck of her tunic: the pendant she had taken from the Elf. He wondered about the Elf. Could the fire be connected with its presence here? But no, surely had the thing had such powers it would have escaped long ago...

  
~~~

  
“Thou knowest I must go,” Elgalad said gently.

His face was so beautiful, and his eyes so clear that Vanimórë could have looked at him for eternity, drowned in the wonder that he was beginning to realize was far more complex than he had thought. It was not just innocence; it went so far beyond that, there was no name for it. Coldagnir had tasted it, and Vanimórë had not prevented him. Sometimes, when he touched Elgalad, he thought his fingers would leave smears of darkness on that pearly skin. His voice caught in his throat.

_No._

_Thou wilt not stop Aredhel. And I am one more warrior._

_Thou needs't not prove thyself! Any man can be defeated, even the Valar!_

Elgalad reached out.  
 _Perhaps I_ am _ashamed of what happened to me, my dear lord, but it is not that alone. I would go anyway. Elladan and Elrohir are my friends. Beleg is my kinsman._

They had turned away, not wanting to intrude.

“Thou wilt drive me mad, one way or the other Elgalad.” He found his voice, and it was a wound. Elgalad heard it, shook his head, coming closer. All that silver power and loveliness inexorable as surf. Vanimórë tried to back away from it.

“Do n-not,” Elgalad held him with his eyes.

“I _know_ Malantur. None of thee do.” He lifted his head. “I want to stop all of thee, but I will not, because Eru knows, if I could, I would already be in Carn Dûm, and he would be dead.”

“We go because some-one must,” Beleg told him, and his voice was so like Elgalad's, sweet and soft as a breeze in the summer leaves. “Thou canst not, _as yet._ But Eru may choose to use other hands than thine.”

“If Angmar becomes a power in the North, it threatens Imladris and Lindon, and Estel's new Arnor,” Elrohir agreed. “And even did it not, you know what the Mouth is doing in there.”

 _Why did I think Elgalad would remain with me?_ They knew he would go.  
Again he had assumed. He found that Aredhel was regarding him with not unkind irony.

“Hells.” He span on one foot. “Bloody Hells!”

 _Vanimórë._ Glorfindel's mind-voice.

_What wouldst thou do, were it Legolas?_

_Ah, these choices._ Bitter, his tone. _And now that we have the power to prevent them, it is even more important that we do not, it would seem. I love Elladan and Elrohir, I have known them all their lives. Aredhel is my kinswoman; even Maeglin..._

_I know. I know. But we both know war, how easy it is to die, and in such a place..._

_I can offer thee no comfort,_ Glorfindel said. _I have none, save that I know Elgalad is a skilled warrior._

And the greatest warriors could die. Vanimórë was speaking with one of them. The history of the Elves rang with such deaths, from Fëanor to Gil-galad. Among the Sindar, Beleg himself, Thingol, Dior and Oropher had all died violently.

 _I cannot live without him._ The thought brought panic, a dagger rammed into his heart. Because he knew, he _knew_ one day he would have to...

If he begged, he thought, Elgalad would accede, but he would be ashamed and torn. Vanimórë could not do it, turn hypocrite when he had supported Aredhel. Maeglin's expression was wry, but there was no mockery in his eyes.

_I have to go, my dear lord. And I will return._

_Thou canst not know that._  
He did not look back, afraid of what the sight of Elgalad's face would do to him. He wanted to bind him and possess him until Elgalad forgot that anything else existed.

“Vanimórë.” Elladan had come to stand before him. “Harken to me, now. We love Elgalad also. But I do not speak now with love alone, but with foresight.”

The foresight of Elrond, sprung from Melian, it was said, and truly.

_What seest thou?_

Elladan glanced past him. _A land in the east beside a sea of blue shadows._

_New Cuiviénen._

Vanimórë searched Elladan's grey eyes until the colour shifted to many-shaded blues; water drowned by sun, stroked by wind. Summer over Gaear Gwathluin.

_Elgalad has never been there._

_Not yet,_ the Peredhil replied.

Vanimórë took a breath. Foresight was a strange thing, it came on one without warning, and was often unclear. As Sauron's son he had experienced it himself. But in the face of his fear, it was little comfort.  
And it would have to be enough.

He turned. Elgalad's gentle smile held an infinity of love.

  
~~~

  
Oxblood's veins corded as he heaved the stone aside, and the sound of its falling reverberated in the passage. It had fallen aslant a doorway, ancient wood gone hard as granite. Beyond it, the corridor was filled with rubble. Half the wall had caved in and gaps the size of an orc let in swirls of mist.

“Repair it,” Horseskull ordered. His companion, who called himself Captain Alanka, was absent, attending on the Lord Sorcerer, but there were other Men, hard-faced and harder-eyed. Lion had come to see very quickly that the Mouth trusted only those whom he had brought from Mordor, and that little enough. But they were permitted to know things Lion was not, nor the other Men with the olive skins and horsetails of hair who, he sensed, hated Angmar, hated the Mouth and the orcs. They had been goaded here by fear, or lured as he had been, and were now trapped.

“Why did you come?” he had asked once. The Man, lean and tough as whit leather had looked him in the eye, gauging his appearance, his strength, and showing no fear.  
“We are cursed,” he said, in his accented voice. “As are you.” And he had walked away.

Lion had never believed he was cursed, rather that his birth had given him advantages. But there _was_ something terribly wrong in Carn Dûm. He had known it since the babes began to twist into...monsters.

Now he looked briefly at the wall. He was not a builder. They could shore up the walls with rubble, which would be repair enough. It was no wonder they had wanted Oxblood, and doubtless they felt as if such a menial task were beneath them.

Horseskull stepped to the door, nodded to one of his men to draw the bar across.

“Wait,” he said.

Three of them went in. The others watched Lion and Oxblood, as noises issued from the cell. The rattle of chains, a hiss.  
The Elf, Lion realized. This was where he was. A struggle. A cry of rage and pain, and three words. The door closed. After a time, it opened again. Lion had moved so that he could see what lay within.

Horseskull was tucking something into a scrip; a phial it looked like. There was a smear of blood on his fingers when he drew them away, bright in the torchlight.

_Immortality...There is no blood more fit for the purpose than the blood of an Elf._

For a moment, Lion saw the creature. It lay face-down on a pallet of heather and skins, its long body almost hidden by creamy hair, now streaked with dirt and dust. It was speaking through its teeth, the same three words it had uttered on their journey here, fierce with the determination not to break. As it turned its head, aware of being observed. Lion saw the feral fire of his eyes.

“ _Agar a baneth. Agar a baneth. Agar a baneth!_ ”

One of the Men set his shoulder to the door and pushed it ponderously shut.

 _That's what he's doing,_ Lion realized. There had been rumors of what happened each moondark. Sacrificing to Melkor, it was said, and it was also said, even more quietly, that those rites did something to the sorcerer, something that required he remain in his chambers for a day to rest.  
He was using the Elf's blood.

_I know how to gather power._

Horseskull's lightless eyes mocked him, as if he was aware of Lion making the connection.  
“Repair the wall,” he ordered. The guards stood silent, impassive, hands close to their weapons.

 _He underestimates me. It will be his downfall._  
Lion had assessed the Men with one quick glance. They were warriors, but so was he, and he was stronger and quicker than any of them.  
From further away, or deeper underground, he heard a scream. There were doors beyond the blocked passage. He nodded to Oxblood. He wanted to find out what else the sorcerer was doing down here. To his children.

  
~~~

  
Vixen was indeed as curious as a cat. if she had not been, she would have turned back sooner.  
She neither liked nor hated Carn Dûm. A product of Orthanc, bred for war, she simply did what she had always done to survive and push through the ranks. She did not trust the sorcerer, but then she trusted no-one, not even Lion. He had, however always treated her with respect, and seen both her ambition and scarce-realized desire for greater freedom.  
Carn Dûm was a step, she believed, so she would train her company, and wait until other steps appeared, but she was not averse to acting on her own. The power that had destroyed the temple had been immense and unearthly, and she might admit to herself that she was afraid, but she would not cower in the fortress when challenged. And she looked upon Lion's suggestion as a challenge.

She did not leave by the great gates. Under the gloom that enveloped Carn Dûm, it was easy enough to go over the walls, and there was a challenge in that too. Vixen had the same ability to function alone as Lion possessed, that Men possess. She was comforted by numbers, by warmth and darkness, but she could move outside it, think outside it.  
But perhaps not this much. As she ran, breached the mist beyond Carn Dûm, saw the wild, empty land rolling to the south, she hesitated, running the pendant back and forth on its chain. She had taken it because it was valuable. Booty was coinage to the Uruk-hai, and she could perhaps have used it in Angmar, where even the breeding-women tried to trade – something for something, as the Lord Sorcerer said. But she had not. Sometimes she forgot it, but often she touched it unthinkingly, while the words the Elf had repeated whispered through her mind, now louder, now quieter, before fading.

_Agar a baneth. Agar a baneth._

Idly, she wondered what they meant.

  
~~~

  
“The Elf,” Lion said. “Those words. He spoke them as we journeyed here. What do they mean?”

The Man's long teeth bared further in a leer. His eyes were pits of oily lust, and he smelled of spent seed. He raised his fingers to his mouth,and swiped the blood with his tongue, slowly. Lion simply stared back at him.

“Some worthless Elf-shite language. Why, _orcblood?_ ”

Lion stamped down on his ire. _He does not know either._  
“Perhaps it is _important,_ Man.”

Horseskull brayed a laugh. Not a horse, Lion thought, a mule.

“Its blood is important, and its arsehole is tight. That's important too. Nothing else. They are a dying race, or did you not even know that?”

“Does the Lord Sorcerer know you play with his prize?” Lion asked.

The Man laughed again, thrust his head forward.  
“One of the benefits, _orc,_ of being trusted. Get your oxhead to clear the passage, or the Master will be...displeased.”  
He walked away, leaving a rank of guards. One of them snickered, fell silent at Lion's long look.

 _I will kill you,_ promised Lion silently to Horseskull's retreating back. _I forget nothing._

But now, he had more important matters to attend to.

  
~~~

  
The journey into Angmar was not hard. The wind changed and blew from the east, that wind which brought dry settled weather in summer, but was a knife in the winter. They ran through brief twilight, for with the solstice approaching, the sun barely set, and the mountains of Angmar, at first only a bank of cloud upon the horizon, gradually grew to a smoke-grey wall that vanished behind trees as they entered a forest of spruce and larch, cold streams and green bogs. It was beautiful, more suited to Elves than orcs or Men. Great Elk roamed, huge bears lumbered, and mammoths bigger than either wandered placidly, feeding. **

Elrohir said that in the time of the North Kingdom, many of the trees had been felled further south, but that this region had been used as a hunting ground, and nobles kept lodges here. Later, when the Witch-King took up his abode in Angmar, Men came to look on it as haunted, and only the bravest or most foolhardy ventured in.  
The woods straggled to an end at the banks of a shallow river running east to west. Beyond rolled an treeless land, where standing water reflected grey sky.  
On the second day, they saw a lone Uruk-hai.

Beleg spotted it first, a dark shape against the green, as the sun skimmed to its brief rest. It was far away, and did not seem to be aware of them, but was heading in their direction. They did not even stop to consult, but took up position amid a scatter of lichened rocks, trusting that their clothing and hair would blend into the surroundings.

None of them had seen Saruman's Uruk-hai, for most had been destroyed at the Hornburg in the War of the Ring, but they knew of them, and the evils Saruman had perpetrated in the breeding of them. Yet, as the creature came closer, they could see that it was a _she,_ and oddly human in appearance. Her black skin did not disturb them, but rather the impression that a Mortal was growing out of an orc to become human. She was slim, and bore ropey tails of fox-colored hair. She was also armed with a bow, a short stabbing sword, and the hilts of daggers rode at her hips.

Beleg and Elgalad eased themselves past her downwind, crawling and sliding snake-like. Once or twice she glanced up and they froze until she walked on. They came on sleeping ptarmigan, and white foxes loped past them uncaring. There was nothing to indicate to the Uruk that any-one was abroad, and she headed toward the boulders, perhaps having decided to camp for the night, or climb the slope to see the lay of the land.

Elgalad had been speaking with Vanimórë until they crossed the river, which seemed to form the boundary of Angmar. It had become harder, like pushing through thick mud, the closer they came to the dark land, and at last Elgalad had, with his mind and all the love in his soul, reached out and bidden Vanimórë farewell.

 _Not for long, my dear lord,_ he had promised. _I will return. I will never leave thee._ And Coldagnir had been there too, with a caress and kiss before the barrier came down upon them.  
Elgalad was not afraid of dying in Angmar, and it was not foresight, but a deeper knowledge that his true death would not come by an enemy's hands, just as Beleg had known long ago. Therefore, as he and Beleg followed the Uruk, he felt no fear. He was a warrior, and this was but one.  
He watched the shadows move in the rocks, heard the ring as a weapon was drawn, an animal scream and the clash of metal on metal. They had given the Uruk no time to draw her bow. _Good._ He bent his own, Beleg beside him.

“Disarm or die,” Beleg commanded, his soft voice honed to hard command.

They were not trying to kill her, but orcs would often kill themselves if escape or victory were impossible, rather than fall into the hands of Elves. The female spun with a war-cry, finding herself within a ring of foes.

“If you disarm,” Elladan said, in Westron. “We will not harm you.”

She spat out a stream of curses, then suddenly with a suggestion of furious acceptance, threw sword and dagger away.

“Shit,” she said in Westron. “Bloody shit.”

Elrohir pulled the knife from her boot and another hanging from a cord about her neck. Her dark face was set in a scowl, but she made no move. There was a sharp look of intelligence in her eyes. She was was thinking like a human, Elgalad realized. He had seen trapped orcs claw their own throats out, and drown, laughing, in blood.

As Elrohir drew the leather cord over her head, something else came with it, something that gleamed in the dusky light. Elladan plucked it from the air and held it aloft as his brother and Maeglin bound the female's arms behind her and secured her ankles.  
And Elgalad felt ice pour down his spine.

“Where did you get this?” Elladan demanded, and they all heard the pent rage in his voice. The female grimaced and swung her head toward him. The pendant spun in the half-light.

“ _Where?_ ” He brought up his long dagger, and suddenly he was the Peredhel who hunted down and slaughtered orcs for what they had down to his mother. His face was pitiless.  
“I will take one eye then the other, then your hands and feet. _And keep you alive._ ”

The uruk snarled like a bitch-fox.  
“In the mountains,” she hissed. “Some Elf-thing in the mountains.” Her eyes glared dark fire. “He's in Carn Dûm now. Or was.”

The inference was clear. Elladan looked as if he might strike her. Her growl still thrummed on the air as he stepped past her to Elgalad and held out the pendant.  
He took it, and his heart plunged and plunged, like a stone into a crevasse. Two swan's necks coming together over a pool of lily-starred water, the whole circled by mountain ash leaves, their spring flowers and red autumn berries, and by the motto of the Sindarin House it represented.

_Agar a baneth._

“Blood and Beauty,” Elgalad whispered, his throat gone dust-dry. “ _Bainalph_.” ~

 

~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Agar a baneth ~ Blood and Beauty. (Translated by Esteliel; thank-you so much!)  
> ** The taiga forest.  
> Woolly mammoths were still extant in Siberia until about 8,000 years ago, and the giant (Irish) Elk became extinct around the same time. Since later (chronologically) in the series, I hint at Mortal activity in the fertile river valleys (Tigris and Euphrates) after the cataclysm, my version of Middle-earth is set prior to that time, before Megafauna such as the Giant Elk and Mammoth were extinct.)


	26. ~ The Summer King ~

  
_Tarnin Austa._ Coloured lamps in the trees. The scent of lush meadows cut for hay, smoking incense, roses.  
  
When Finrod told him what he purposed, Glorfindel's eyes grew distant as he consulted the wellspring of his knowledge. He had to, for it was outside his own.  
“I see. Thou art sure of this?” And there was no disapproval in his voice, only love and concern. “It is a deep thing, and not an easy one.”  
  
“Too deep for me?” Finrod tilted his head, smiling a challenge. “Legolas has explained it. I believe I can encompass it. And I have witnessed, in Doriath.”  
  
“To know of such a thing, even to see it, is not the same as enacting this rite thyself, my dear,” Glorfindel said, but gently. “No more than imagining a lover can even touch the reality of making love.”  
  
Finrod could completely agree with that statement.  
“Wouldst thou dissuade me, then?”  
  
“No, but as a brother I do not wish to see thee hurt.”  
  
“I will not be, not in any lasting way, not so?”  
  
“That is true,” Glorfindel affirmed with, his brother thought, a little reluctance. “And I know thy strength. Legolas will be with thee? Did he suggest this?” Distant warning fires sparked in the ice-blue eyes. So, save that once, he had not used his powers to watch Legolas, Finrod assumed. That must have taken a great deal of self-control.  
  
“No.” He held the weight and power of his brother's gaze. “We spoke of Midsummer, and he told me of the Silvan celebrations. _I_ decided. Wouldst thou have me dismiss him, for thou knowest he will be part of this.”  
  
“And I,” Glorfindel said rough-gold, “I too will be a part of it.”  
  
“Why?” Finrod asked. “I saw how thou didst react to his being with Eluréd and Elurín.”  
  
Glorfindel gave a toss of bright hair. His eyes had gone rather hard.  
“I love thee both,” he said.  
  
Only Finrod knew Glorfindel was here. To Legolas, he would appear one of Finrod's people. This night and the day that followed, Glorfindel vowed that he would not be as a god, would let the night and its power carry _him._ Even at _Nost-na-Lothion_ he had been aware, looping tendrils of force about Legolas, keeping an inner eye open to all that happened. This would be a test of himself, to accept what Legolas was by immersing himself within a ritual that the folk of the Great Wood had observed before Oropher and his son ever came from the ruin of Doriath.  
Glorfindel could no longer pretend ignorance of his lover's life, and to leave it as an unspoken thing between them would only lead to greater difficulties. He was jealous, possessive, but needed to be able to transmute those emotions into something more pleasurable and less potentially destructive.  
  
He donned the mask Finrod had fashioned because, although he could alter his appearance without it, if one touched a masked face, whatever it looked like, it would _feel_ like metal. Slowly his hair darkened to black, his eyes assuming a clear grey hue. He thought of the Noldor on the shores of _Gaear Gwathluin,_ and of how the high king would celebrate this night. It was hard to imagine him doing what Finrod purposed. The ego there was too great. But, he reminded himself, he had been wrong about Fëanor before. And the thought was... _intriguing._  
  
 _“Tarnin Austa should be exceedingly interesting,”_ Glorfindel had said to Finrod.  
  
It would be far more than that, now.  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
Thus the eve of the _Aran Laer_ ,* the ancient ritual that both Oropher and Thranduil had adopted from the Silvan Elves. A version of it had been observed in Doriath, and Legolas was not surprised to learn that Finrod that had witnessed it. In Nargothrond, Finrod added, the Midsummer celebration was far more restrained, which Legolas hardly needed telling, for he had been in Imladris for the Summer Solstice more than once.  
  
“I do not doubt that there were those who engaged in wilder, private celebrations,” Finrod observed. “I affected to know naught, of course. But my people would not have _openly_ accepted such things.”  
  
But now all had changed, and Finrod had passed through Midwinter and Nost-na-Lothion. But when Finrod had declared his intention to inaugurate the rite, Legolas had asked him, carefully, if he understood what it entailed.  
  
Finrod had smiled tranquilly. “The Summer King sacrifices himself to his people and his land at Midsummer, and is reborn at Midwinter.”  
  
“Yes,” Legolas agreed. “He sacrifices himself. There is no death, but he gives _all._ ”  
  
Such nights were always extremely wild, surpassing even Nost-na-Lothion, but they bound the king, the land and its folk together in ways as old as the first Elves. And Legolas realized that this was exactly what Finrod wanted. Despite his magnanimity, the excuses he found for his peoples apostasy, it hurt still. Orodreth's jealousy, hidden under Ages of lies and revealed so recently, had re-opened the wound. Finrod was also ashamed at how far Nargothrond had fallen after his death. A Man cursed by Morgoth and his own bitter arrogance had brought doom upon it, but also given it a sunset of pride.  
  
“There was glory at the end,” Finrod said, quiet as the windless night, but with ages of hurt his voice. “Nargothrond came to ruin, as all the Noldor realms, but at least not hidden, not as cowards in the dark.” Something flared in his eyes then, and he exclaimed passionately: “Ah, Hells! If Orodreth had marched to the Dagor Nirnaeth Arnoediad, who can know? It might have tipped the balance. Even had he refused for love of me, a true king would have known how vital was Maedhros' Union!”  
  
He and Legolas grew close in those days, and prince was able to observe the relationship between Finrod and his people more closely. Finrod's song-duel with Manwë and Námo had elevated him in their eyes, which held shadows of awe and not a little guilt. But that guilt drew its water from the same well that Finrod drank from – his cousin, whom had betrayed him. Whom Finrod hated – and loved.  
Legolas could see how impossible this situation was. And now, Finrod wished to bind himself wholly to his folk, to this, his new home. Of all the Noldor who had returned, Finrod's people were, as they had been before, the least willing. Perhaps they came to atone to their king, mused Legolas, rather than because they sought liberty.  
And Finrod was going to bind them to himself, perhaps so that whatever he might do in the future, they could not so easily reject him again.  
  
“There is power the rite of the _Aran Laer_ ,” Legolas pressed. “As there is in the Blood-kiss. But there is no gentleness in it.”  
  
“So I know from Doriath,” Finrod replied evenly. “Thinks't thou I require gentleness? And yes. Yes. I do seek to bind my people to me.” Under the sweetness, the sword-steel. It was there in all of them, though in Orodreth and Finarfin it had become a twisted and brittle thing. Aegnor and Angrod, who had come with Finrod, but were settling yet further east in the wild pine-dark skirts of the Orocarni, supported their brother and his decision. They, and others of his household, including the ten who had died with him in Tol-in-Gaurhoth would take an active role in the first Midsummer ceremony.  
  
“You do not _need_ to do this.”  
  
“No. Only for myself.” Finrod's mouth bent, sweetly-wry, a smile that Glorfindel's fiery arrogance could never have formed. “Knowest thou that until the end, I hoped that something – _some-one_! – would force me to break the private oaths I had made? And he almost did. Only when I was dying did I realize that some vows should not be kept. Not mine, not the Oath of Fëanor. But even were I not a king, had I no realm, still I was betrayed, and I will not forgive my cousin until he goes on his knees before me. I am _not_ his. But he might be mine, and none will say me nay if he comes to me on _my_ terms.”  
  
And so. Finrod would make his place here and bind himself to this new kingdom, his _Sant Laer nuin Gwaith Loss_.** By initiating himself into this very ancient rite, he made a statement of independence both to the high king and one of the high king's son's. To the latter it was also a challenge.  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
The day began quietly. It was so in the Greenwood, as if the Elves rested before the storm broke within them. Legolas thought the _Golodhrim_ did not feel it as deeply or as easily – yet, but they would.  
And they did. As the shadows grew longer, so Legolas felt their souls begin to lift with expectation. Finrod's people became as a hive-swarm, the individual part of the whole, and all sensing the slow-rising power.  
  
Finrod had eaten nothing that day, and drank only water. Sequestered alone with all his brothers save Glorfindel, (who was deliberately absent from the preparations) and Legolas, he bathed in water drawn directly from a spring, and his body was anointed with perfumed oils. At the last, he had knelt on hands and knees, and Legolas, gently, and with pleasure slicked oil in and about his tight entrance. He felt the hard hitch of breath, and the pulse of desire deepened.  
  
Now, Finrod was clad in a long white tunic. His hair was coiled up loosely, and his brow bound with flowers. He looked pure and virginal and yes, sacrificial as he stood alone on a small hillock in the evening light.  
Legolas felt his blood begin to run light and scalding-hot. Very far away in the Greenwood, so too would his own kin be celebrating.  
  
The rose-gold sunset stained Finrod with pale blood, and the last rim of fire sank into _Gaear Gwathluin._ A horn sounded. No silver trumpet this but the far more ancient sound of great rams horns that sent a wolf-brush up the spine. As the call sank into silence, Finrod spoke.  
  
“My people,” he said with beautiful resonance. “Our kin have long given thanks on the Summer Solstice. Once we were as free as they before we forsook Middle-earth, and are again _if we choose to be._ And I so choose. On this eve, the king gave himself to his folk and to the land, the Mother. As king of this realm within the High Kingdom of New Cuiviénen, I offer myself to thee and to _Sant Laer nuin Gwaith Loss._ I am the _Aran Laer._ ”  
  
Drums began, and Legolas knew who must be playing that rousing quickening beat, the harp that weaved through and soared over it, though he had not seen the players arrive. Those of Finrod's household who had been chosen and prepared for this stepped forward. They were naked, but each carried a dagger in a wrist-sheath and a long whip. Slowly, almost formally they formed a ring about the king. Legolas stepped forward, and the knife whispered down, parting the white robe. With the same unhurried ceremony, he pulled the cloth away from Finrod's wide shoulders, let it drop to the grass. The sight revealed, though he had seen it so many times, never failed to pour heat into his loins.  
  
Finrod's body was crossed and re-crossed with red cord, representing the binding to his folk and to the Earth. About his throat was a golden collar, tiny steel rings depending from it. He had stood perfectly still as Legolas expertly bound him, felt the strands pass under his groin, across his hips, about his thighs, stomach and nipples. He could walk and move quite normally within the knotwork, but the slide of the silk against his skin produced an almost unbearable friction, and the rings at his collar chimed softly with each turn of his head.  
  
Now the king's chosen began to dance to the drumbeats, their own heartbeats. Fires roared upward about the knoll.  
A whip hissed and bit, a dark serpent of pain. Finrod stiffened, unable to repress a choke of shock as it struck his body. He clenched his jaw.  
  
 _It is the shortest night,_ Legolas had murmured. _And a long,_ long _night._  
  
Finrod understood. He was the _Aran Laer,_ the sacrifice. His own pleasure was not important. In the morning, he would rise from the dark into the sun and then, _then_ his time would come.  
  
 _There will be pleasure,_ Legolas promised. _But first there will be blood, and pain._  
  
Another whip fell, another, and the blood came, salt-sweat stinging in the weals.  
  
Finrod had seen this rite performed, but not truly understood what it meant to be the Summer King. Until now. The power came down on them all unstoppable and feral. Flame-light glossed naked bodies sheeted with perspiration, and the masks possessed a peculiar quality, made more eerie by the fire-shadows; one moment they were polished silver and gems, the next they became as a living face. Finrod was the only one unmasked, and felt peculiarly vulnerable, as if he were surrounded by strangers all intent on one violent purpose. Yet there was a fierce, frightening anticipation in the thought, and his heart began to beat more swiftly, matching the flight of the drums. His cock swelled to aching, but he could not come to release, not until the dawn...  
  
 _A short night. A long, long night._  
  
Finrod closed his eyes, spread his feet more firmly. Drum-beat, heart-beat, harp-notes, voices intoning a chant. Fingers trailing over his damp, bound flesh, his chosen circling him like wolves, masked faces flashed, blurred, shifted, flashed. Legolas stepped before him, (was it Legolas?) and his mouth was sweet as honey, hot as the needfires,*** and Finrod wanted _more._  
Legolas laid a finger over his lips then removed it, and his second kiss was all desire and joy.  
“For the Earth,” he said, through the music, eyes filled with starlight.  
  
“For the Earth,” Finrod echoed, breathless. Legolas slipped the thong of his whip through one of the collar-rings, and lilted away white and pearl, his hair sweeping a valedictory caress over Finrod's loins. The leash grew taut. One by one they came to secure their whips until he was held at the center of a circle. There was a pause in the music, the chanting. Finrod closed his eyes and groaned.  
Quite suddenly the dancers restraint snapped. Finrod felt his hair caught, pulled, so that his throat arched back.  
  
 _Yes._ Now.  
  
He heard a purring groan of dreadful need, and was pushed roughly to his hands and knees. He did not resist. The Summer King never did.  
  
He did not know who took him that night, though some he guessed. There was no drug, no sorcerous forgetting; he simply did not see them only glimpses of long hair, fair or dark, as he braced himself, held by the leashes that ran out in spokes from his collar. He was so desperate to be possessed that the first penetration dragged a cry of sheer relief from his throat, but very soon he realized that the power of the night rode his people harder than he for this time. They took, and it was for him to give; _to any-one,_ Legolas had said, ensuring he knew what that meant.  
Any-one. His brothers if they desired him, men who hid grudges even as Orodreth had, or those who loved him as kin, but on this night might unleash their secret hungers. They were savage but not cruel, sinless, driven as stags in rut, and they took him with the same inhuman lust.  
  
The night stretched, collapsed in on itself into shards of fire as the Summer King gave himself and endured, his hands drawing from the Earth itself, fingers digging into the grass, the rich loam beneath. He heard himself moaning, low and continuous, in his throat.  
  
 _Too much._  
  
Seed slid down his thighs. He cried out as some-one drove into him again, and a hand reached to caress his flaccid length. It was the first tenderness since Legolas' kiss. Lips whispered down his spine and the man's length slid out, then in, tormentingly slow. _there..._  
  
Pleasure uncoiled in his groin like a serpent waking.  
  
There was a scent of green woods, moss and secret flowers. He thought of Doriath and then the forest was all around him, and the pleasure began to crest and crest. Shivers raced across his skin, and now his cries were not of protest, of pain, but of _need._  
  
 _Now,_ a voice said. _Now the day dawns._  
  
His lover withdrew before he could spend, and his breathing was harsh with frustration, but thus was the king brought closer to release. Any more and he would have spilled before the appointed time.  
Finrod himself had not noticed the slackening of the dark, but now, for the first time since it began he was alone, alone and bruised, and febrile with desire.  
The sun had not yet climbed the mountains, but colours were blushing out of grey dawn.  
  
 _And when the sun comes..._  
  
He could not speak; seemed to have lost the ability to. His throat felt raw and swollen, but his mind found names for the faces, though in truth they could be any-one, every-one, people who should have been far away. But that was the sorcery wrought into the masks, and Finrod knew he could not trust his eyes. They stared at him, magnificent and dangerous animals, unsated, breasts heaving, hair in wild flurries. There was silence. He closed his eyes, arched his back inward, hearing his own cramped, goaded breath, wanting them all again, some-one inside his hot red core, taking him through the Gates of Summer.  
  
Fingers came about his collar.  
  
“For the Earth? For thy land and people?”  
  
Finrod whispered: “Yes.”  
  
“And for me?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Oh, now. Let it be now, before he broke.  
  
 _Take me, take me,_ take me!  
  
The collar fell away. He found his voice, cried out as he was filled. Hands gripped his hips, bruises on bruises, a fist-hard shaft plunging harder, deeper, and every thrust rubbing that secret inner gland, sensitized to agony and throbbing. Even on the Longest Night he had never been so stripped of himself, his self-possession, his very humanity. Only by willingly abdicating all that he was and had been could he come to this nullity. And, by offering himself, he saw how part of his soul, everything that was he, Finrod, passed from him into his people, forging links that even as king of Nargothrond, he had never known. He could almost see the shining webwork of strands between he and those who had partaken of him. That was the symbolism of the wheel-spoke of whips of course, and every year more would be spun, until he and his folk were one.  
  
The sun rose, its rays striking his abraded flesh like solid light and his last scream became the solar roar of power. His seed spilled violently onto the earth, and for a moment he was within it, and the Earthwomb contracted in spasms as a woman does if a man loves her well. He came again and again, his body racking, and then he broke into light and flame, was the sun, the Earth, was for a moment, everyone who had possessed him.  
  
The red cord lay about him like idling ribbons of blood.  
  
 _I am the_ Aran Laer. _I am my people, and the land._  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
Finrod woke. He was bedded under soft coverlets that smelled of lavender and roses. As he moved, pain throbbed, but was receding like a lazy tide. Legolas had said that the Summer King could endure. It was true. There was discomfort, but a greater wonder, and no shame in his having been overcome by such overwhelming glory. Now, his soul felt like the sun, enlarged, ripe and tranquil. Music was still playing but softly, for this was the time of relaxation before the noon and night to follow. His people would be lounging under the sun, drinking wine, eating fruit. Finrod smiled, and some-one he had been aware of, sitting just out of his vision said: “How feelest thou?”  
  
“There are no words in any tongue.” He sat up, and Glorfindel handed him a goblet of wine. It tasted finer than the white mead of Ilmarin. Finrod drank deep, and cast his brother a look. The magic encased him in amber. He was calm, but there was no such aura about Glorfindel. He was waiting, coiled like a great tawny cat, and still erect.  
  
“I have no regrets.” Finrod said. “Thou?”  
  
“None.” Which was what Finrod wanted to hear. Before the night claimed him, he had suffered some doubts, not for himself but for the others.  
  
“But the day is not over,” Glorfindel reminded him.  
  
“No,” Finrod agreed.  
  
At noon, he must choose his consort for the year. In effect, it was a marriage from Midsummer to Midsummer. In more ancient times, in the bloody First Age, or when the Silvans had been depleted by war, the custom ensured that the king spread his seed, siring strong children. They did not comprehend monogamy, those wild Dark Elves, living in a violent world, and even now, in the Greenwood there were clans whose chieftains, men and women both, adhered to this ancient tradition. Finrod had thought it over when Legolas first spoke of it, and understood now that it was simply another facet of the giving of oneself to one's people. But Finrod did not need to sire children. His folk were the most numerous and had, in Nargothrond, been fertile. There were sons and daughters of Exiles who had in their turn married, and chosen to return to Middle-earth with him. And Finrod, despite all he knew to be true, and knowing it had happened to others, felt that his virility was in doubt. He had not been able to give Amarië a child, and there was shame in that; he believed, still, that he had failed her.  
He had never truly spoken of this sense of emasculation to any-one save briefly to Ingwë. The Valar had certainly interfered, but should he have been so susceptible? The Longest Night with Celegorm, with Daeron and the twins had proved to him that he was not impotent, but there was a question of whether those fey Iathrim had lent him potency. Nost-na-Lothion had been little different, and last night he had been the vessel. He was still uncertain of himself, but to take a consort for a year as he continued to build this land, one who had already possessed him, was bound to by the rites of the _Aran Laer,_ this, he could do. In fact, this, he must do. There could be no half-measures.  
  
Glorfindel brought a ewer of water and drew Finrod to his feet, frowning as he surveyed his brother's body. Finrod looked down at himself, at the marks of the whip, bruises, dried blood and seed.  
“It matters nothing,” he said softly. “Look within, if thou wilt.”  
  
“I do not wish to,” Glorfindel murmured. “Nor do I need to. And it seemed perfectly natural, part of the night.”  
  
“And does it not, now?”  
  
“Now?” He kissed Finrod's shoulder, where a lash had broken the skin. “I do not know. I do not like to see thee hurt, but – ” he lifted the ewer and poured water. It stung in the wheals, icy cold and marvelously clean. Finrod hissed softly, tilting back his head, and heard the strange tightness in Glorfindel's voice as he went on:  
“Even now, I could do all again, and feel no guilt, Summer King.”  
  
“And I would welcome it.” Finrod touched his brother's face.  
  
Among the Silvan Elves, one chose that last sunrise lover as consort, and Finrod now understood why: aftershocks still rippled in his blood. Something profoundly beautiful had been shared, and could never be forgotten, and each year would forge new links. Yet what if that lover were Glorfindel himself, or another of his brothers? Even Fëanor (or rather, he guessed, Fingolfin) was too wise to openly flaunt an incestuous lover, at least so early in this new life.  
But this was why he had become the Summer King: so that his people would be so bound to him that they would not balk at at his taking even Celegorm as a lover. Perhaps incest would not be as shocking to them.  
If _he begs my forgiveness. And can I forgive him, in truth? I am not sure it is even possible, but I_ will _hear him confess his betrayal._  
No matter that Orodreth had declared the cousins' carnal relationship, intending to damage his standing, Finrod had neither admitted nor denied it, but there lay the motive behind his decision to invoke the rite of _Aran Laer_. He knew well that one twisted power to one's own ends only at great risk, but he had been impelled by a sense of deep injury and pique, and whatever the reason, the thing was done.  
  
 _Who took me through the Gates of Summer?_  
He would know, it was said, at noon. But he thought he did know. Finrod met his brother's eyes, blue into blue, and was silent.  
  
~~~

~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Aran Laer ~ Summer King.  
> ** Sant Laer nuin Gwaith Loss ~ Garden of Summer under Shadows of Snow.  
> Thank-you to Esteliel for the translations. :)
> 
> *** Needfires were made using the friction of wood upon wood, not by a match or flint and tinder.  
> The rite of the Aran Laer is made up by me, but using various legends.


	27. ~ Preparation ~

  
~ Celegorm's journey to Finrod's new realm had been delayed at the outset, by Curufin who, without consultation, elected to join him. Fëanor intervened with a distinct twinkle in his eye, telling him he desired his presence in the forges. Hardly would Curufin have denied his father, and indeed, did not wish to, allowing Celegorm to ride off with Huan on what every-one save a Fëanor believed was a protracted summer hunting trip. Huan, sometimes in the form of a hound, sometimes a man, was amused by his anger when Celegorm's hawks brought him news that Finrod would be celebrating the solstice with an ancient rite. The great birds had heard enough for the Fëanorion to form a tolerable understanding what the ritual would involve, and he became increasingly incensed. He had been prepared for a feast, dancing and music, rendered far more exciting by the knowledge that he should not be there, that he was masked. The _Aran Laer_ was not at all what he had expected.

“I cannot believe this!” Celegorm flashed, then contradictorily: “But I know _why_ he is doing it.”

“Yes,” Huan agreed, resting lazy and naked under the shade of a tree. “But he _is_ a king, and chooses to bind himself to his land and people in the old ways, while ensuring they are also bound to him. Think on it,” he advised, observing the sulky, sensuous curve of Celegorm's mouth tighten.

“His people,” Celegorm repeated, and one hand clenched into a fist. “His people who turned away from him? He owes them naught!”

“The people thou wouldst have gladly ruled?” Huan asked silkily, and Celegorm sprang to his feet.

“ _With_ him. Ruled _with_ him!”

“Thou art still not thinking,” Huan chided. The Fëanorion was exciting in this mood, dangerous and very slightly off-balance. That was Finrod's doing of course. The wild power of the House of Fëanor raged against the white strength of the House of Finarfin, and Celegorm had not expected such resistance. Huan did not laugh _at_ Celegorm; loving him deeply, yet he could not but find the situation exquisitely amusing.

“So, he binds himself to his people...” The fabulous silver-black eyes narrowed, staring north. “And they to him.” Suddenly he smiled blindingly. “With ties greater than oaths of fealty.”

“It would be very much more difficult for them to break with him than in Nargothrond, yes. But thou hast not learned the whole, yet.”

Celegorm spun at Glorfindel's voice. There had been no concussion of air, no sound at all to announce his arrival. No-one should have been able to approach a hunter as skilled as Celegorm without his knowing, but preoccupation had drowned his senses like a cloudburst.  
“I know what he is purposing,” he snapped.

Glorfindel lifted his brows, shared a glanced with Huan, who smiled.  
“Not all of it.” He regarded his cousin steadily, and Celegorm glared back.  
“Do not try and prevent me! This is between he and I.”

“ _Betrayal and death_ lie between my brother and thee.”

“They do indeed,” Celegorm agreed bitterly.

“Eru only knows what he sees in thee to love!” Glorfindel's seeming calmness cracked; blue light splintered from his eyes.

“Ah, no, Golden One, thou knowest that as well as I.” Huan stretched and rose. “So entirely Finwion, the both of thee.” Too beautiful, and far too volatile to peacefully coexist. Finrod was wise to have chosen a land so far from Gaear Gwathluin.  
“This one sees the deep tranquility that he lacks, but needs, as a thirsty hunter needs the still, clear pool to drink from, and Finrod sees that part of him that lies beneath his composure, the fell-fire all of House Finwë possess. They see themselves.” His hands ran through Celegorm's cream-gold hair. “It began long ago; it is part of the Arc of Fire. And the greatest loves ofttimes birth the greatest of sorrows.”

“Does he?” Celegorm leaped on the words. “Does he love me?”

“Do not test me,” Glorfindel advised him. “Because _I_ love him, I have looked deep into _both_ thy souls.”

“And what seest thou?”

“I see a Fëanorion.” Glorfindel looked his cousin up and down. “Thou wouldst not, and did not, admit thy wrongdoing even in death!”

Celegorm's stormy gaze intensified. “And that, too, is between he and I.”

Suddenly, incongruously, Glorfindel's eyes danced with thinly veiled amusement. It reminded Celegorm of his father, hiding a jest he would not share. But Glorfindel would.  
“Thy hawks do not tell thee everything.” he said. “Thou shouldst befriend the smaller birds, cousin, those who perch in bough and bush, but thy falcons take them as prey, and their voices go unheard.”

“Stop it! What do I not know?”

Glorfindel drew his arm slowly from Celegorm's fierce grip. “It is part of the tradition,” he said. “for the Summer King to take a consort for a year, from Midsummer to Midsummer.”

“A _what?_ ”

“In older times, when wars had reduced the population, the _Aran Laer_ spread his seed among his people to ensure their survival. But Finrod does not desire to father children, or not yet.”

“Is he _crazed?_ ” Celegorm demanded fierily. “He is doing this to throw the gauntlet at my feet, and I will be damned again before I let him!”

Glorfindel was clearly enjoying his discomfiture.  
“The one who takes him at dawn, is bound to the Summer King for one year. And forever. If thou wouldst partake of the rite, it could be thee. Art thou prepared?”

The question threw a boulder into the torrent of Celegorm's fury. He had his own land to found, but the sons of Fëanor were in no great hurry to leave their father.

“Well?” Glorfindel pressed him. “He was thy king in Nargothrond was he not? Or didst thou not view him in that wise? because I can assure thee, after speaking to Dana, I know he _will_ be thy king and lord.”

Celegorm pulled away from Huan's hands, his jaw clenched. _Had_ he viewed Finrod as his king in Nargothrond? For Finrod _was_ indubitably a king, not a man enacting a role ill-suited to him, but to Celegorm he had always been the lovely, maddeningly placid young cousin. Neither of the Fëanorions truly accepted any king after their father's death, though they paid lip-service. Their lands were far from Hithlum and House Fingolfin, and even in the Long Peace, neither Celegorm or Curufin had journeyed there; it was Maedhros, Maglor and sometimes Caranthir who had kept the channels open with errand-riders, birds and personal visits.   
  
After Mereth Aderthad, Celegorm had been to Nargothrond only once, and Finrod had come once to Himlad, but there had been a strangeness to those meetings that was not strange at all when Celegorm thought back on it. Since his coming to Endor, he had garnered the reputation of being an inventive, cruel and capricious lover. Finrod had clearly heard the rumors, which accounted for his air of aloofness. And to Celegorm, his cousin was like the superb sea-pearl gifted to him by Círdan after he had come to the aid of the beleaguered Falas in the _Dagor-nuin-Giliath._ * It was the size of a quail's egg, with a golden iridescence mantling the milky pallor, and it was perfect. Celegorm, for all his love of personal adornment, never wore it, but kept it in a box, bringing it out at times to look on its beauty. Knowing it was there, that he could lay his hand on it whenever he wished, was enough, as it had been enough to know Finrod was in Nargothrond, his most precious possession held deep in a safe place.   
  
As a ruling king and prince, they could not be together in the way Celegorm desired, and he knew in his soul that if he once possessed Finrod, the occasional meeting would not satisfy him; he would want his cousin all the time. And so. He took lovers, he experimented in the arts of erotica with those who were willing, waiting for the time when the Oath would be fulfilled, when he could besiege his cousin's white-enameled virtue. He had no doubts of Finrod's ultimate surrender, had chosen him long ago, even before that first kiss in Tirion, and the Exile had opened doors of opportunity that had been in danger of being shut fast. Oh, Eru, he had been exhilarated when Finrod did not turn back with his father!

But that was before Beren.

“He would not have me.” He swung to look at Glorfindel. Of course Finrod would not; he refused to admit anything of note had happened on the Longest Night, pretended loss of memory over Nost-na-Lothion.

“His consort will be the one who take him through the Gates of Summer, _whomever_ that man is.”

_So, thou wilt have me at a time of_ thy _choosing, coz?_ Celegorm twisted one of the rings that adorned his hands. “ _The one who takes him through the Gates of Summer..._ I _love_ the euphemism.” He paced away, and Glorfindel, watching said, with unconcealed satisfaction: “Yes, he is not as easy to handle as thou wouldst imagine, is he?”

“ _Easy – !_ ” Celegorm whirled back. “Hells, thou shouldst have been in Nargothrond! It was like trying to chip away a marble veneer to find the flesh and blood and – _passion_ I knew was there. And it was. It is!”  
He shuddered with savage, sensual memory, thought of what he had learned from his hawks, what Glorfindel had told him, and then he smiled in disbelief.  
“Finrod of all people – choosing his companions from Tol-in-Gaurhoth I can understand but his brothers – Oh, Eru, what a wonderfully incestuous clan we are!”

Glorfindel flashed a swift, dry smile.  
“Consanguinity matters naught at times like this. In the end, we are far more than bodies linked by blood-ties. Wert thou not more in the Void?”

The angry humor drained away.  
“I desired Finrod when I was houseless. How strange. In the Everlasting Dark I _burned_ for aloof, beautiful Finrod. Canst thou understand, for whom has ever refused _thee_ , Glorfindel? Life, death, it matters not. I _want_ him!”

“Thinks't thou I would let thee go near my brother had I not seen into thy heart?” Glorfindel demanded. “If did not believe that under all this – ” He slapped a hand through the jeweled, creamy hair, and Celegorm tossed his head, eyes flaring a warning. “This damned bloody arrogance and betrayal and intransigence there was love? I would have nothing hurt him again! I saw his death as didst thou!”

Celegorm flung up a hand. Fire-opals seethed in the sunlight.  
“Enough!” He closed his eyes. Far up, in the milky-blue, a falcon called like mockery.

“It would be rather satisfying to see thee bound so deeply to Finrod.” Glorfindel was smiling again. “Thou hast no idea yet how very, _very_ deep this goes.”

“Do not play with me! How deep?”

Glorfindel came closer, and Celegorm felt the _presence_ of him, storm-gold power more concentrated than that of the high-sailing sun. He tensed with aggression.  
“The Summer King gives himself entirely; the land and his people _take._ For that, he is due something back. Do not think he would be thy pet, cousin. It will be – _quite_ the opposite. The old name for the king's consort, was the Summer _Bride._ ”

“Thinks't thou I would be any-one's _bride?_ ” Celegorm laughed disbelievingly. But he shivered through it. Finrod was not a passive lover, as he knew from the Longest Night and Nost-na-Lothion, but Celegorm had always envisaged _himself_ as the dominant one in their relationship. There was a light feeling in his blood, like scenting the bouquet of a strange and potent wine, never before tasted.

“Second thoughts, _coz'_?” Glorfindel goaded him.

“I am sure thou wouldst like that!”

“I would. Though to imagine thee bound to him – ”

“– is piquant,” Huan concluded.

Celegorm flashed him an infuriated glance.  
“If I am bound to him, is he not to me, whether he will or no?”

“He is,” Glorfindel conceded. “Perhaps not quite in the way thou art thinking. He will be the king after all, and thou, his subject. And anyhow, it is not certain thou wilt be the consort. I must not influence the rite of the _Aran Laer._ It is the Mother's domain.” Then, as if answering a question behind Huan's blue gaze, he said: “I could. But _Nost-na-Lothion_ was first and foremost a celebration of freedom. The _Aran Laer_ is blood and love, it is the giving of a soul to one's land, one's people, an old, old rite.”

But he _had_ influenced Nost-na-Lothion, Celegorm thought. And was paying for it, in his way.  
“If thou canst do naught, is it not quite possible that Finrod will choose Legolas?” he asked with a bite of spite, letting his teeth show, and he saw the flinch in those ice-blue eyes, the same colour as Finrod's, but with all the power allowed to burn outward, none of it hidden.

“I know. I will be there myself, as Glorfindel, not as the Vala of the Elves. I have to experience what Legolas always has, else I cannot hope to understand him. Or any-one.”

“Oh, I thought thou hadst... _experienced_ it?”

Glorfindel made an impatient gesture. “I did, and I was also aware of all that was happening. I believed I should be. I did not know if the Valar might try to interfere, how our people would respond to such liberty.” He turned from Celegorm and stared north. “Finrod has become very fond of Legolas.” There was strain all through the even tone, like the web-work of cracks under ice. “And I know beyond doubt that Legolas will be among those who take him that night. In fact, because Legolas understands the _Aran Laer_ and has experienced it, I am grateful he will be able to prepare my brother for it.”

The Fëanorion could not stifle a crack of hard laughter. “Or at least that is what thou art telling thyself!”

“That is what I am telling myself,” Glorfindel looked back at him, faintly frowning. “But once I am immersed, this is deeper and older than I, and it will take me as it takes all of us.” A tremor there, a deepening of his voice. It chimed within Celegorm like a bell, furring his nerves.

“All Finrod's chosen companions are aware of the rite,” Glorfindel said. “They have all met privily, which is why thou hast heard nothing. But if thou wouldst participate, I must explain it to thee.”

At the end they were, all three, aroused, and their breathing came fast, as if the night that had not yet come glanced lust over its shoulder to heat their loins.

“I will do it,” Celegorm whispered, the words coming slow and hot as melting honey. “And thou coz', perhaps thou canst forget for a time what thine apotheosis has made thee.”

  
~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Dagor-nuin-Giliath.* ~ Battle-under-Stars, the first battle the Noldor fought on their return to Middle-earth.


	28. ~ A Consort For A King ~

_“Forget what thine apotheosis has made thee.”_   
  
Glorfindel thought on Celegorm's parting words later. Fos Almir had made him a god, and he was fast coming to resent it. He had misused his powers, was unable at times to use them at all. He strove to accept and control them, and while it had not seemed difficult at first, more and more it was like a man trying to drink a river. His life in Imladris seemed simple compared to this new one, even with the Shadow rising, and the remnants of the Eldar sailing to the West. There had been martial pursuits salted with politics, both of which he knew, and unexpectedly, there had been love, deeply satisfying and idyllic, when he could forget the danger he placed Legolas in. And that too, had seemed simple, uncomplicated, compared to Fëanor, Ecthelion and Maeglin.   
  
_Because I made it so. Because I saw what I wanted to see._   
  
Glorfindel had felt what Legolas was, the freedom of him, and now he must embrace it. The forthcoming rite afforded him the opportunity, but possible connotations arising from it troubled him, and his doubts lay in the affection that had bloomed between his lover and his brother. He did not need power to sense it, just as one need not see a flower to smell its odour.   
Glorfindel had been jealous when Legolas went to the Iathrim, but there was a different mood to his emotions now, the jealousy strongly flavoured by something else, and it had not taken him long to discern what it was. Here in his heart, two blades crossed, for Glorfindel loved his elder brother with the peculiarly deep passion that, in the scions of House Finwë, could so easily skim the border of incest or cross it entirely. Virtually every familial relationship in that house flirted with the taboo; affection, even enmity, manifesting itself as desire either openly acknowledged or unadmitted. Glorfindel had wondered if his own father's dislike of Fëanor and eventual repudiation of Fingolfin was rooted in the forbidden. Demonstrative and ardent, kisses and caresses between them were natural as drawing breath. Thus Glorfindel, when considering Finrod, Legolas and the rite of the _Aran Laer_ , burgeoned and grew hard.   
That was one blade, Legolas was the other. For so long Glorfindel had believed the prince belonged to him, but though he might proclaim it, and had certainly believed it, now he was forced to wonder whether he had ever truly known the soul behind those clear blue eyes. Never once in all their years as lovers had Legolas evinced any tinge of shame, of furtive concealment; his beautiful face, not unlike Finrod's in its sweet-molded calm, was transparent as a clear dawn. Because Legolas, of course, felt no guilt. None. He was not duplicitous; his life in the forest and his lovers there did not cross into the space that Glorfindel inhabited. In Imladris, Legolas was as sensual and responsive a mate as Glorfindel could have wished for, even at the beginning, when he was very young. But _“I seduced you,_ Legolas had said. Glorfindel, accustomed to the Noldorin habit of ingrained reticence, (so incompatible with their natures!) had, for all his initial qualms, been wholly charmed and ultimately disarmed. And now, after the debacle of _Nost-na-Lothion,_ and its repercussions, talking to Legolas over this crack in their world was bootless. Glorfindel had to reach out and join with his lover over that abyss.   
  
In the end, even thinking of it availed nothing. One had to _live_ the night of the Summer King.   
  
  
~~~   
  
  
Edrahil, Finrod's greatest lord, once captain of the army of Nargothrond, loved his king, and his attitude toward Finrod's people was not dissimilar to that of Celegorm or Legolas, in that he felt they owed a great debt. He believed that all of those who had abandoned Finrod should be made to see his death. All their deaths. The tale of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, like so many of the tales of the Elder Days, was fashioned to be declaimed by bards in gleaming halls, and carefully excised of brutal details. No-one could know the adamantine-sharp power of Sauron's presence, what it was like to be bound and cast into a dark pit, to hear one's companions devoured alive by creatures one could scarce see, save for their eyes, dreadful with a cold intelligence that did not comprehend mercy. That atrocity was not something one could bear without madness: the crack of splintering bone, the wet ravening of jaws tearing and gorging, the screams. _The screams._ And then his own death, the agony of it, to be reduced to naught but offal long before life was extinguished. Through the visceral roar of agony that reft him of humanity, he heard the king cursing, weeping. Edrahil had prayed, while he was still a man, could still think, for death to release him swiftly. He could not bear to hear his king's horror. Death had come inevitably, laggardly and, long after, rebirth. he had come before Námo, whom had rebuked him for his crooked lusts, telling him he had been granted rebirth only because they had never been acted upon. _Live cleanly as thou didst live in thine old life,_ the Doomsman had commanded, for it certainly had not been either advice or a suggestion, _Battle with the desires that would lead thee astray, or thy second death will last eternity._   
  
Released at last, a weight of dullness in his breast like lead, Edrahil had gone to find his king in quiet Tirion and renewed his oath of fealty. Finrod clasped him close and both wept, and then had come the long, cool waiting time, the life that was no life, into which change had bust like a firestorm.   
Edrahil had seen Finrod's face when the reborn Noldor came to Tirion, when Celegorm did _not_ come, had seen it after the song-duel with Manwë and Námo. There was nothing he would not do for such a man, such a king, and he understood why Finrod would embrace such an ancient and powerful rite to bind his people to him. Edrahil had been Finrod's friend since childhood, his upbringing nigh as proscribed as his king's and that, as much as Celegorm Fëanorion, lay as a bar between friendship and the natural progression of desire that, in the Noldor anyhow, had grown stunted and awry. Both would ever be between them Edrahil believed, until in New Cuiviénen he realized what liberty from the Valarin Laws truly meant, and that nothing was as clear-cut as he had been taught. Thus, when Finrod revealed his intentions for the Summer Solstice, Edrahil had not hesitated in voicing his support. Whatever might lie at the root of the king's decision, he was entitled to the absolute fealty of his people and Edrahil, whom had passed a wondrous and surprising _Nost-na-Lothion,_ did not even attempt to hide his anticipation. He could easily see Finrod in the role of the _Aran Laer_ , not because he was submissive or weak (Legolas had said that of old, it had always been the strongest who enacted the rite) but because he possessed the supple give of fine steel, would bend but never break. Once Edrahil had agreed, the other companions followed. Some were wed, but their wives, and indeed all the women, were to perform their own rites, which only they seemed to know anything about. Edrahil remembered Doriath; he had visited Menegroth with Finrod, had once been there on the Summer Solstice, and Queen Melian had presided over the Iathrim women in some secret fastness into which only one chosen man was permitted.   
  
Thus the Solstice came. As the sun set the blood rose, and the heart with it. The mild, dark air that flowed over naked skin became a caress that hardened the manhood to pain. When Edrahil saw Finrod, king and sacrifice both, bound by blood-red cords, his soul expanded and enlarged and was lost to the night. Finrod gave far more than his body. There on that hillock, bound by whips, taken without pity or tenderness, he gave his _self,_ to the land, to his people, and in that utter surrender he became the Summer King. What matter his reasons for it? Edrahil had been one of the few who saw how Finrod's denial of Celegorm, the Fëanorions subsequent annihilation of him as a king, had wounded Finrod's heart and soul. The man who challenged Sauron in Tol-in-Gaurhoth and been defeated had died before he ever left Nargothrond, and Finrod Felagund had never truly been reborn. Now he was.   
  
  
~~~   
  
  
Celegorm could not fight it, the undertow that drew him in and down, then took him wholly into the night. Despite his jealousy at the thought of others having Finrod, the raw sexuality of the rite did not trouble him. But he had thought he would be able to control his participation and, to an extent, his emotions. He could not. No-one could. This was _Nost-na-Lothion_ focused through a lens.   
  
He was not one of the chosen companions with their knives and whips, but Glorfindel had said that once the rite truly began, once Finrod was bound and leashed – and ah! the _sight_ of him began the steep fall into abandonment – he was any-one's.   
The Iathrim were there. Celegorm sensed and saw them, for they were not masked. He watched as Finrod was whipped, and the leashes became the spokes of a wheel, holding him. He saw Finrod's abasement to every man who mounted him, how he needed their savage possession. He heard his cousin's cries and moans grow more desperate and despairing until Finrod was hardly human, but a vessel used and filled to the edge of shattering. Far away and outside himself, Celegorm realized that none of them were human this night; they had passed beyond it.   
  
Something stroked up his spine like a breath of fire. Although he could not see it, Celegorm knew what it was: an awareness of the Sun surging over the curve of Arda.   
He did not feel himself move, shoulder aside the wild dancers as a wave pushes aside flotsam. Tossing hair and white limbs twirled lightly out of his path. The needfires, burning with soundless heat now, as if feeding on passion itself, flashed from silver masks, reflected in feral eyes. Celegorm passed Eluréd and Elurín, their white teeth gleaming as they laughed, reached out to caress him, and gave way.   
  
Glorfindel had told him what to do if he could, the words he must speak. He took the collar in his hands.   
  
“For the Earth?” he said. “For thy land and people?”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
“And for me?” His own question.   
  
“Yes.”   
Almost a sob. Finrod's body was trembling violently. His silent plea drummed in Celegorm's groin.   
_Take me, take me,_ take me!   
  
He was hot as the needfires within, slick with spilled seed, and Celegorm drove himself to the hilt in the red depths with an imperative and overwhelming hunger that negated tenderness. For a moment he thought he would break then and there, but it could not end so soon. His shaft found and brushed the point of pleasure within, and Finrod's cry could have been agonized, but for the sheer relief that belled within it. Celegorm's spirit plunged down into Finrod's body which milked him until he was unsure who took and who gave, save that he wanted to plunder Finrod until time ended, and then take him again. He heard himself as from a distance, gasping like a man half-drowned, felt sweat-sleek skin slip under his hands. One of his own moved to draw on Finrod's manhood. Then nothing but sensation that became _everything._   
  
Finrod took him, drank him, screamed then bucked and spilled in violent spasms, keening. The racking release, the flood, took Celegorm again and again mercilessly draining him, and ripped his consciousness away. He collapsed within Finrod. Who would never now release him.   
  
For a moment after waking he lay peacefully, lapped by repletion then, becoming aware of another presence, he turned his head. Legolas was kneeling, damp hair drying with the silvery sheen of sun-scorched hay. He reached and poured a goblet full, proferring it in silence. Celegorm sat up and drank, quenching a thirst he had not been aware of. The wine, light, colourless, sparkled through his blood.   
  
“It is almost noon,” Legolas told him tranquilly. “You must prepare, for the Summer King will claim his consort.”   
  
Celegorm sought to find words. It was unexpectedly hard.  
“Thou knowest the rite.” At the quick upward glance, he gestured to the roof-tree, the sky beyond. “I used hawks. They brought me news.”   
  
“You can talk to birds?” Legolas looked intrigued. “So can my people. I did wonder.” His eyes went to the mask, now laid to one side. “I did not know who had taken Finrod through the Gates of Summer until I removed that.” A troubled expression crossed his lovely face briefly as a butterflies wings, and was gone. “Ah, well. What is done cannot be undone.”   
  
“No.” Celegorm smiled, and challenged: “Didst thou want it to be thee?”   
  
Legolas long lashes dropped. His mouth turned up, the smile secret, voluptuous. He was not, Celegorm realized, tranquil at all, simply resting, expectant. Why?   
“We _all_ want it to be us, on those nights.” He rose lithely, still smiling, and indicated a simple tunic of poppy red. “Your king awaits, Prince Celegorm.”   
  
  
~~~   
  
  
The knoll was drenched by sun. Celegorm could almost see the pour and pour of power from the earth, overspilling, sliding down the grass. All those who had taken Finrod were gathered at its foot.   
  
_“One knows by touch,”_ Glorfindel had said. _“The soul chooses.”_ So it was that, even should the Summer King desire a different consort, it could not be.   
  
Finrod came blindfolded, lead by one of his lords, and, as all the men were yet masked, Celegorm knew he could not be certain who the man was whatever face he wore. The king was clad in gold, the robe belted at the waist, flowing to his feet, yellow flowers woven into a crown and cascading into the creamy masses of his hair. He climbed the hillock and stopped, his escort joining the men who closed about their king, shoulders almost touching. Celegorm could see the bruises mottling Finrod's throat, the streak of a whiplash running down under the neck of the robe, the lush scrollwork of a mouth folded mute. His thoughts scattered and the blood boomed like a tide in his loins. He had not been able to think further than this moment, to consider what it would mean were he Finrod's consort. The rite would throw them together until the next Midsummer. His cousin could no longer pretend forgetfulness.   
  
The king reached out blind hands, his fingers brushing each man lightly, and their involuntary, aroused breathing sounded loud in the hot silence. Finrod's wrists and arms were bruised where those who had mounted him had gripped them in lust-frenzy. There would, Celegorm knew, be marks all over that splendid body. Finrod bore them carelessly, as badges of honor, not tokens of shame, and Celegorm's heart caught, jolted and thundered as the slim white hand swept nearer and touched his breast.   
Invisible lightning leaped and flashed. Celegorm gasped at the feeling of connection, as if a weaver had taken his soul and sewn it into Finrod's. He wanted to fall on his knees, kiss the shapely feet, and the urge was so alien that he instinctively battled it, drew back.   
  
The king's hand jerked as if he felt intolerable heat. He stilled, the sun painting black shadows under his cheeks, striking his unbound hair to white. And then he moved, lifted his fingers. Slowly, ceremoniously, he touched the man beside Celegorm, and the one next to him. He spoke.   
“There is no law decreeing the number of consorts the Summer King may take. It is custom merely. The _Aran Laer_ must always choose the one who takes him through the Gates of Summer, but _each_ of my consorts bound themselves to me last night. Thus I choose these three.”   
Reaching behind his head, he loosed the blindfold and let it fall. The brightness contracted his pupils so that his eyes flamed like cold blue jewels. “Come, my loves,” he said. And smiled.

~~~

Celegorm felt the a shift in the earth under his feet. He stared in consternation at Finrod, who glanced at him, knowing perfectly well whom he was.   
“Thou canst not do this!” His voice emerged torn into shreds of fury and disbelief.   
  
“I have done it.” Finrod stepped to him, and lifted away his mask. The concerted volley of startled stares struck Celegorm like an arrow-flight as his identity was revealed. He stiffened, threw back his head haughtily.   
_Thinks't thou it would be so easy, cousin?_ Finrod asked. _Didst thou believe I would not know thy spirit, thy voice, thy hands, thy touch, even disguised, even unmanned by the rite? It is not for_ thee _to force my hand, nor to usurp my prerogatives as king. And yet thou hast. But thou shalt take thy due place, Celegorm Fëanorion_   
He turned away, went to the other two who waited, and removed their masks one by one.   
“There _is_ a binding,” he stated.   
  
There was a feral otherness in Glorfindel's eyes, contained only by the one who faced him.   
“Yes,” he admitted slowly, looking aside at Legolas, whose shoulders shook as if he were holding in a rush of laughter. “There is.” Then his expression gentled, became human again, and he said, very low: “Dost thou understand what thou hast done, my brother? To thyself? To all of us?”   
Finrod's smile, thought Celegorm, was an echo of Legolas' earlier one, savoring an erotic thought.   
“Yes,” he replied. “I think I do.”   
  
Three brides for the Summer King.   
  
  
  
~~~

~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have realized that I must have subconsciously copied the idea of Finrod's choosing a consort from Esteliel's A Year And A Day. Until the random story came up on Faerie, I did not think of it. I owe Esteliel an apology, as I read A year And A Day on LOTRFF, and it must have buried itself in my mind, as things do.


	29. ~ Mist and Mistrust ~

~ “Bainalph is a p-prince of the Greenwood,” Elgalad said, folding his hand tightly over the pendant. “The only ch-child of Cúalph, the Swan Prince of D-Doriath, and Uirephíl.” He turned to Beleg as he spoke, saw the clear grey eyes widen.

“Yes,” the Iathrim said in his quiet way. “I know them. They had another son.”

“Another?”

“A son who died in the First Battle, before the Noldor returned, before Melian raised the Girdle. He was dearly loved.”

“I d-did not know.” Elgalad's voice twisted. “And I do not understand h-how Bainalph could have b-been captured. He is deadly, very skilled. P-perhaps...”

“Perhaps?” Beleg prompted.

“I d-do not know,” Elgalad demurred after a silence that stretched just a little too long. “Does th-this mean orcs are attacking th-the forest?” He glanced at the Uruk-woman.

“We have heard nothing in Imladris,” Elrohir told him. “Celeborn is there, and he would have sent word, even if Thranduil did not. Come. You,” he snapped at the Uruk in Westron. “will lead us to Carn Dûm. How did you capture the Elf?”

She cast him a look filled with loathing, but capitulated. “He was alone.”

Elladan spun his knife idly, and not idly at all.  
“Your knowledge is the only thing that keeps you alive. _Talk._ ”

“You will kill me any-way!”

His brows flicked inward. “ _The Elf!_ ” His voice whip-lashed.

“He was alone, I said!” she barked back. “Hunting mountain-orcs. They were running from him. There were three of us, one behind him. He didn't see until it was too late.”

“Why didst thou not kill him?” Maeglin asked, his voice sliding like smooth steel under her roughness and the Peredhils frank, fiery anger. The Uruk's eyes moved to him, her breathing rapid and shallow. Suddenly she let it out in a huff.  
“The sorcerer offered immortality. He needed Elvenblood.” Her lips curled back. “He'll welcome all of _you._ ”

“Why are you here?” Maeglin pressed, lifting a hand as Elrohir would have moved. “And why alone? Were you leaving Angmar?”

“Scouting,” she said, sullen. “There was a great fire. The sorcerer went to ground like a coney after it. Orcs are worse than useless in the sun.”

“She has no loyalty to Malantur,” Beleg murmured in Sindarin.

“Orcs have no loyalty to any-one,” Elladan spat with disgust. “They understand only fear and violence.”

“How d-didst thou keep Bainalph alive?” Elgalad asked suddenly. “How didst thou k-keep him under c-control?” He thought she was lying. An Elf would have to be semi-conscious not to fight every moment against his captors. When he had been captured, he had tried to escape, was still ashamed that he had not.  
The uruk slanted him a look. “ _Fireblack._ ” She nodded downward to a leather bottle at her hip. They had thought it water. Elrohir cut its thongs and unstoppered it. The scent was sharp in the cool evening, bitter as sloes.

“What did it do to him?” he snarled at her.

“Drunk,” she shot back, but her slanted eyes were wide.  
 _She fears._ Elgalad could see the sweat shining on her neck.  
“He acted drunk. Dazed. The sorcerer wanted him alive. He was alive when we delivered him.”

Elladan's knife poised over her throat. “Not dead?”

“No.” She held herself very still.

No-one voiced the opinion that Bainalph was undoubtedly dead now.

“Everything,” Elladan said so softly that it chilled. “Everything you know of Angmar, in return for your life. Do you understand?” She had been in a position to see more than Zeva ever had.

“Yes,” she said.

  
~~~

  
 _Tell me what thou wouldst not say of Bainalph._ Beleg fell back with Elgalad, as they ran to meet the dusk. _His brother Alphael was my lover, long ago._

Elgalad slowed, gazed at him, and put out a hand.  
 _I am so sorry._

Beleg's mouth quirked into a sweet smile. _Agar a baneth,_ he said. _If it please thee?_

 _It was all long before I came to Mirkwood, as it was then,_ Elgalad leaped a thin stream without pausing. _And very few know._

There had been some hard winters, he said, driving orcs and Fell-wolves down from the Towers of Mist into the Vale of Anduin and beyond to the borders of the Greenwood. Alphgarth, Bainalph's lordship on the north-western border, had borne the brunt of the attacks. Bainalph had been young, not even full-grown by the measure of his Sindarin blood, but in those years he had earned his reputation as warrior-prince, throwing back the orcs and wolves time and again. And then, one autumn, knowing that another bitter winter was coming down, Thranduil had traveled to Alphgarth...

 _Bainalph seduced him._ Elgalad looked sidelong at Beleg. _He told me himself. He said he had always wanted Thranduil. But the king was wed, and loved his wife, and it was not_ Aran Laer _or any such rite._

Beleg frowned. The marriage bond in Elves was a mating of souls, and unless the pair shared lovers with one another (which was not uncommon, at least it had not been unknown among the Sindar and Nandor) usually they did not take lovers, save at times such as the Solstice, which were different for married and unmarried Elves alike.

 _Thranduil hated Bainalph for that. And because..._ Elgalad hesitated, felt heat kiss his cheeks. _Bainalph is one of those who enjoys submission, and receiving pain. Thranduil...enjoyed giving it, dominating him, or so Bainalph said. After, Bainalph was not welcome in the halls unless there was a Council of Lords. And..._ He looked ahead where the long day was sinking into the gloom of Angmar. _I wondered if Thranduil's wife might be returning now. Bainalph may have become reckless, not cared... He should not have been hunting orcs alone._

They ran in silence. The clouded hills were a deeper darkness before and above them, but stars shone down over Eriador. Elgalad spared a look back, thinking of Vanimórë, who was no doubt gazing northward.

 _Thou knowest Bainalph well?_ Beleg asked gently.

 _Yes. I did not meet him for some time after I arrived in the forest. When...after I first visited Imladris with Legolas, I gained the rank of lieutenant, and rode in a company with Legolas to the north-west. It was then I first met Bainalph._

 _And liked him?_

Elgalad felt himself smile through the terrible fear that wrenched at his guts.  
 _Very much. Of course, I knew very little then of...the pleasures he enjoyed._ He faltered. He had spoken of Bainalph in the past tense. _Enjoys,_ he began again. _But he was kind, gallant. He teased me, but kindly. He was...very sensual. Notorious for his tastes, his many light loves. I think Thranduil did not like Legolas dealing with him, but he knew Legolas loved Glorfindel, and let the matter rest._

 _Yes, thou hast drawn a picture I recognize. Alphael was thus._

His mind-voice was so level, so accepting of his losses, and Elgalad hurt for him.  
 _Bainalph never traveled to Imladris,_ he said, trying to draw Beleg's thoughts onto a different path. _Even when Legolas' relationship with Glorfindel brought closer ties between the valley and the wood. He had no love for the_ Golodhrim.

Beleg did not reply, but he looked thoughtfully to where Maeglin ran ahead of them, long braid swaying with his stride.

 _Does he love a_ Golodh? Elgalad wondered to himself, and thought of the child safe back in the hidden valley, whom had cried when Beleg left. And was this whole venture not ultimately about Túrin?

They halted briefly, grudgingly, to eat and check their weapons. Elladan looked at the Uruk, then flung a piece of cold meat at her feet. A low growl thrummed at the back of her throat.  
“I am no animal to eat from the dirt!”

“You are right,” Elladan returned tightly. “You are worse than an animal, something wrought out of rape and sorcery.”

“And what are _you_ but eaters of souls?” she hissed. “Don't you think I know what you will do to me?”

 _So was Vanimórë got by rape and sorcery._  
Elgalad knew what it was to be treated as an object, and the wolfsheads too had called him soulless, a _thing._ The Men of Esgaroth had never seemed to hold such a belief, but had they thought it? And the creature disturbed him, too man-like to be an animal, too orc-like to be Elf or Mortal, yet no beast, either.

“Is that not what the people of Angmar believed?” Maeglin asked. Aredhel, whom had been regarding the Uruk-woman silently, nodded.  
“We do not,” she said clearly to the uruk. “Steal souls.”

Shockingly, the other laughed, a mocking, desperate sound, and spat, Liar!”

Aredhel frowned, stepped forward, ignoring her son's protest. The Uruk leaned away from her.  
“How do we do it?” she asked calmly. “Hast thou ever seen it?”

“Every-one knows it. Even the orc-scum. They were _you_ once.”

“ _No,_ ” Elladan and Elrohir refuted instantly.

“Yes, Elf.” The uruk met his eyes. “And so, when you kill them, you drink up their souls, so that they will reborn as Elves, not as orcs.”

The silence was thunderous, shocked. Aredhel tilted her head, and said in Sindarin, “She believes it.”

“Let her,” Maeglin murmured. “A strange myth, is it not? But oftentimes, fear, or lust, is the key to understanding our enemies.”

Vixen hated to look at the Elves. Their eyes seemed to burn every layer of skin from her body, and leave her raw-nerved, naked to the light. It was not in her nature to show fear, and so she fought it as she had fought those who would have usurped her place or raped her in the dens of Orthanc, but she was, under the bravado, deathly afraid. The whispered tales of the Old Mothers floated back to her. She remembered their knotted fingers rubbing the tiger's-eye amulets, highly prized as protection against the soul-eaters. Vixen had never expected to see an Elf, and her inherent pragmatism had doubted the stories. Anyway, she was not an orc, though she had accepted their belief in rebirth because the Uruk-hai bred by Saruman were too young a race to have evolved a belief-system of their own. Lion, who liked to bend his mind to such unanswerable questions as life beyond death, said that the Uruk-hai were more like Men than orcs, or some of them were, and that their soul's journey would follow that of Men. Vixen spent little time considering such things, or had not until now.

It had begun with the white-haired Elf. Despite the _Fireblack,_ despite his bonds, he had been dangerous, and the journey to Angmar had been one of constant vigilance. Vixen did not know what had happened to the thing after he had been handed over to the sorcerer, and neither did she care, but his eyes lived in her dreams, bringing her awake in her tower-room with a start. She trained and played bones, enjoyed jugs of mead, rutted when the mood took her, and mostly forgot the creature, but uneasiness had settled into her like a damp chill. Now she was surrounded by the creatures, and their eyes flayed her, cold as winter, hot as the fires of Orthanc. There was nothing behind those eyes, or perhaps there was too much, and Vixen understood why the orcs prayed for a quick death not a lingering one, which gave the demons time to drink the fleeing soul. She swore inwardly, she should have let them shoot her, but they might only have wounded her. The risk was too great. And they wanted information, were headed for Angmar. Perhaps there would be an opportunity to slip away from them in the mists, or could she bargain with them? At least they were capable of rational thought. She could not lead them to the Elf, but she judged that she could get them into Carn Dûm secretly. Lion had told her of the great gaps in the walls where the tower had fallen on that night of fire. And once she was inside...  
She raised her head, snuffing the dawn. None of them had slept. Maybe they did not need to. She was thirsty and ravenous, but she would not grovel on her knees before them for a slice of meat however much her stomach begged for it.

As soon as she moved, they did. Their eyes caught the light in strange gleams and sparks. They had been watching her all night.  
“There's a tower fallen.” She hated that her voice sounded hoarse, and worked saliva into her mouth. “There was a fire.” Had they caused it? She did not know. “I've not been down there, under it. Few are allowed. There's ways in now, since it came down. But you'll need me to show you.”

The woman stepped closer; a soundless, flowing movement. She spoke to the others in their peculiar language, then held up a water-skin, pouring.  
“Drink,” she said.

Vixen watched the silvery run of the water, her throat convulsing, and carefully tilted her head to catch the stream. She was dry as an old bone, and for a delicious moment she ignored the Elves around her, the arrows trained on her, the hands on sword hilts, feeling the water soak every parched nerve in her body.

“She will betray us,” Maeglin told his mother as she stoppered the water-skin. “As soon as she is within the fortress. We will have to kill her.”

Aredhel's eyes rose to his. “Perhaps we will, but let us get there first.” She turned back to the Uruk, holding out a strip of meat. “Bite me and I will gut thee,” she said pleasantly, softly, a dagger appearing in her other hand.  
The Uruk did not bite. She ate, drank again, and they gathered their packs. The sky was a low, smokey roof which thickened, lowering until wisps of fog reached out vaporous arms and enfolded them all. The moisture was hard and bitter on their tongue, tasting of iron.

“How far?” Elrohir asked the Uruk after a silent time of climbing. The land was raising itself in rough uneven shrugs toward the mountains of Angmar.

Eyes narrowing, she sniffed.  
“Close. Can't you smell it?”

It was not a smell, but they knew what she meant. The air had a dark tang that pressed closer than the fog. It spoke of long-rusted metal, of dungeons buried under stone.

“Close,” the Uruk said again, then, “I need to see to my needs.” As no-one spoke, she snarled with pure anger: “Is that what you want to see, me walking in filth?” And she swore in her own tongue, a long spitting invective. “You're no better than _him!_ Uruks are not _beasts!_ ”

“Wait,” Aredhel said forestalling any comment, then to the others. “We should let her.”

“Why?” Elladan asked coldly.

“Because we are not beasts either,” she told him. “And I think she may respond better if we treat her as human.”

“You cannot treat them as human,” Elrohir said flatly, grey eyes gone dark as slate. “They are abominations, and your son is quite correct. We will have to kill her or she will being the whole of Carn Dûm down on us.”

“I wonder,” Aredhel mused. “Tie rope to her wrists, let her have some privacy. I will go with her.”

“No,” Maeglin protested.

“And I say, Yes.” She smiled at him. “Thinks't thou I am being soft-hearted because I am a woman, my son? One does not attract wasps with vinegar.”

It was an interlude fraught with tension. They allowed the Uruk to walk to the end of the rope and into the fog. Aredhel, quite aware of the danger, loosed the woman's breeches with one hand, dagger in the other, but the prisoner made no move to kick or attack. She was not at all unlike a Mortal in the way she was made, a nest of reddish hair over her groin.

“Why didst thou not try to escape,” Aredhel asked.

“You'll kill me and drink my soul, unless I die quick.”

“But thou doth think we will do that anyhow, and once in there,” Aredhel nodded northward. “Thou wilt betray us.”

The Uruk looked down at her boots, brows frowning. “What if I said I would not?”

Aredhel's laugh was low, amused. “We would not believe thee. Tell me: What could we promise thee for thy silence, for thee not to betray us?”

“I wouldn't believe _you,_ ” the woman retorted. “Trust the soulless?” She seemed to be talking to herself. “Freedom. Faugh! How would you understand?”

“Freedom,” Aredhel repeated. “We do understand.”

The Uruk smiled bitterly. “As Lion would say, _hypothetically,_ ” And Aredhel blinked at the word. “I would have you vow not to take my soul. I've friends in the fortress who've no love for the sorcerer, and not only Lion and Ox. The Men out of the East don't serve for love of him, but from fear.”

Aredhel considered, then drew a flask from her belt. The Uruk drew back, blinking against the potent fumes, but drank.  
It was _Miruvor_.

  
~~~

  
“A drunk Uruk is just what we needed, mother,” Maeglin said dryly.

“It occurred to me that _Miruvor_ might have a similar effect on her as their _Fireblack_ did on the Elf,” Aredhel murmured.

And it appeared to have a very similar effect indeed. The Uruk did not seem dazed, but she was somewhat intoxicated, and the _Miruvor_ had unchained her tongue.

“Freedom, Lion said. Freedom or death.” The woman spoke in a low voice, as if airing a grievance. “Hah. He was right, though. Not about Angmar, but freedom.”

“Tell us,” Aredhel invited.

It came out gradually, so that they could piece together the three Uruk-hai's journey from Isenguard to Angmar, and something of the situation there. But it became clear the woman's knowledge of the breeding experiments was second-hand. And still, it was enough to horrify, tallied to that which Zeva had told them. After, she fell silent, until suddenly she stopped as if walking into an unseen wall.  
“Here.”

They realized that the rough ground was littered with odd, black pieces of rock, bubbled and –  
“Melted,” Maeglin murmured, picking up a piece, and running his fingers over it. “The tower.”

They could see nothing, but the black pressure lay on their skin like oil. Somewhere up there, the old fortress brooded in mist and sorcery. The air was dank, cold.

“I came this way,” the Uruk said, keeping her voice very low now. “Curious.” She shivered, turned it into a shrug. “Lion always said it would get me into trouble. They might be up there. Ox was needed to move the debris. He's strong, but he only takes orders from Lion.”

“And what will he do when he sees us?” Beleg murmured.

“Attack you, if you threaten him.”

“And if we do not, and if thou art alive?” Maeglin asked.

Again she shrugged.  
“Lion's _clever_ ,” she told them. “Give him a reason to help you. Find out what happened to his pups.”

~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bainalph first appeared in A Light in the East, but I decided to include him in this story, too.


	30. ~ A Gap Into Darkness ~

  
The Uruk had never seen any sacrifices herself, nor been allowed down to the lower levels, she said, but the one she called Lion had fathered children.  
“They died.” She frowned. “He wants to know what the sorcerer did to them. So would I. He asked, but the bastard put the pain on him. Said it was the price of immortality.”

Maeglin tossed the stone away. He could imagine it running like honey, sliding down the mountainside, gradually cooling in the fog and rains. And he could imagine the pain. Morgoth had used that on him, merely to demonstrate what he could do if Maeglin betrayed him, and because he enjoyed showing others that they were powerless in the face of his might.

_And I_ would _have betrayed him, if Glorfindel had bowed to me._  
The thought was outrageous now. All that long madness, tightening within him as wine-gold year followed year had been released by death. Even in the Void it had not returned, because Maeglin was not truly a traitor.

_But could it return?_

Perhaps, but he believed he would die in Carn Dûm, tonight or in years to come. On that thought, he felt a hand settle firm and gentle on his back. Beleg's sweet ferny scent wound itself about his heart and drew him back into the present.  
“Our aim is to release the people of Angmar imprisoned in Carn Dûm,” he said. “And the Elf, if he lives. We will kill any-one who attempts to stop us, dost thou understand?”

The Uruk nodded, did not look at him. He had noticed that she would avoid eye-contact most of the time.  
“What of those who help?” she muttered.

“We cannot trust you,” Elladan said stone-cold.

Her eyes flared. “All we wanted, we three, was freedom. Still do.”

“Freedom, plunder and booty.” Elrohir bit off each word.

“Wait,” Aredhel interposed. “We _cannot_ trust you, no, but perhaps we can bargain.”

The twins turned to stare at her.  
“You would bargain with an Uruk who would slit your throat as soon as she was free?” Elrohir demanded.

“She is not wholly Uruk. Even thou must see that.”

“ _Even_ I?” Came from both of them.

“Your mother,” Aredhel said, not ungently. “I know thou hast hunted and slain orcs. But hast thou ever seen any like her?”

The Uruk's eyes flashed across their faces. The _Miruvor_ had loosened her tongue but not dazed her into unwariness. Nothing would do that Aredhel knew. She was too accustomed to keeping her council.

“No,” the brothers said together. “She is worse than an orc.”

Because she looked almost, but not quite, Mortal. It was discomfiting, Aredhel owned, but the woman could think and speak and show emotion, and she might be more useful as an ally than an enemy. She smiled to herself grimly. Had her son not made a bargain with Morgoth? She wondered if that occurred to him. By his silence, it had.

They climbed. Tonight was the Moondark.

~~~

“He did what?” Fëanor threw back his head and laughed.

_It surprised me too,_ Glorfindel said dryly.

It _was_ surprising. Fëanor still smiling, brushed his fingers over the intaglio he had cut.  
 _Thou wilt abide by his choice?_

_I will have to._

_Have to?_ He could not forbear to tease.

Fëanor had decided to let his people celebrate the Summer Solstice in whatever way they chose, and because he knew that Fingolfin expected him to do something, he had not. He enjoyed keeping his brother off-balance. His own night had been spent with Dana, and he wondered now, quite suddenly, if he had been involved in his own private act of worship to the land, the Mother. The thought did not trouble him, though he could not envisage enacting the rite Finrod had inaugurated.

_I must come and visit thee. All of thee._

The afternoon sun lay hot and motionless on the white stone of the path as he left the forge. He drew his shirt over his head and thrust his head and shoulders under the pour of water that was piped down into a trough then ran back into the stream, eventually finding its way into Gaear Gwathluin. It was hotter here, he had been told, than Hithlum, or the lands his sons had ruled in the Elder Days, as hot as Valinor had been when the Trees still grew. Crops planted in the spring were growing abundantly, the mansions rising at, it seemed, the same rate, but few were at work this day unless they wished it.

_Tonight is the dark of the Moon._  
Raising his head he stared west. He had spoken to Dana, naturally.   
  
_“I will not interfere,_ ” she had said.   
  
_“Will not?”  
  
“Cannot, any more than Glorfindel or Vanimórë can. This is wound with Túrin and his oath, Fëanor.”   
  
“I know.” _   
  
He also knew what it would do to Fingolfin, to Fingon, to Turgon, if Aredhel died a violent, lonely death in the dark of Carn Dûm.   
  
_“But thou,”_ he said. _“Canst see.”_  
  
After a moment, she had affirmed, _“Yes.”_

_“I want to know. I will be with my brother tomorrow. Whatever happens in Angmar, I want to know.”_

Fingolfin was working, as Fëanor had known he would be. The crucible tipped, poured delicately as a man pouring fine wine into a crystal goblet. The liquid blue lapis lazuli exuded both heat and cold into the air as it ran, the strange contradictions of the cold forges. Mist swirled and rose as viscous blue flowed into the incisions, the voluptuous arcs, the perfect lines. Fingolfin's silent song caught sparks from the dust motes, sighed into the vapour, breathed across Fëanor's skin. He watched in silence, knowing the art and knowledge inherent in this, the power drawn from the soul. His brother stepped back, the song limning his body with opalescent light, protection against both heat and cold, and the crucible tilted upright. Fingolfin moved to the great slab of marble, its silver-white patterned now with dense blue. His fingers spread above the surface, and the lapis settled, beginning its hardening. Later Fingolfin would come and smooth it meticulously, and then it would be ready to be placed.

Fëanor did not move, knowing how one concentrated at this art, how oblivious Fingolfin was to his presence. He watched with great pleasure as the shirt slid over wide shoulders, sank into the hollow of his back, dwelled on the infinitesimal clench of sinew in tight buttocks and thighs as Fingolfin moved, bent his head. His hair was braided and coiled, ebony strands escaping to drift in the troubled air. There was something tender and childlike about the curve of his neck, as a child's is before its hair has grown. A yearning like pain opened in Fëanor's being. He clasped to him everything Fingolfin had done and said to him when passion freed him from the fetters of caution, and he wondered if it meant as much to his brother as it did to him.

_My star, as Fingon is Maedhros', as Gil-galad is Tindómion's. Dost thou know it, truly know it?_

Fingolfin sketched a rune with his fingers, graceful as a dancer, binding his name into the stone. Fëanor lifted his own hand, his mind spanning the distance between them, to stroke down Fingolfin's spine. His brother raised his head, and his profile showed clear for a moment, finer than any carving, and far more beautiful, animated by the fire of his soul.

_And knowest thou I would rather die, dearheart, than have anything hurt thee again?_

He wanted to stride across, draw Fingolfin into his arms, hold him against fear for his daughter, the hidden fear for her son, for Turgon's words, Glorfindel's, Ecthelion's, other _Gondolindrim_ had shown him a different view of the traitor Maeglin.

_What relationship in this family ever runs smooth?_

And beyond that, Fëanor wanted to walk through the walls of the past, to be with his brother as he battled Morgoth, alone, valiant and hopeless. He had been there in spirit but not in flesh, and then he would return to Araman, and write history anew.

Fingolfin turned, paused for half a heartbeat, then walked out into the hard gold glare of the day. His song fell back into his flesh, his soul. He closed the doors behind them both. His eyes were polished, quite opaque.

“Glorfindel has spoken to me,” he said, inflexionless.

“And what thinks't thou?”

A faint smile curved Fingolfin's mouth. “It is interesting,” he murmured.

“Interesting,” Fëanor repeated, and laughed, because the mirth kept bubbling under his skin like a little, lively stream. “Yes it is. We _have_ to visit them.” He laid a hand on his brother's back. “Come.”

They walked in fulminous silence, for there could never be true silence between them, down to the shore. Many were swimming lazily. Fingolfin unpinned the great coil of hair, let it fall and act as a cloak as he stripped, walking into the gentle waters. Fëanor followed. The shallows were like warm milk, cooling only as he waded deeper, the sand pale. Small fish whisked across it, shadows trailing them.  
Fingolfin had stopped, ripples licking at the taut muscles of his belly, wet hair spread and undulating on the trembling ripples.

“I would like,” Fëanor murmured, formally. “To be with thee this night.”

“I cannot bear what I may have to bear alone, is that it?” The gull-wing brows lifted. “I always have.”

“And thou shouldst not have had to.”

Fingolfin let out a breath, disarmed, as Fëanor had intended.  
“I wish we could send an army there.”

“So do I.”

He had considered asking Glorfindel to use his powers in some way, to take the Noldor army to Angmar – and had not. If that had been possible, Glorfindel would have suggested it himself.

“If she dies,” Fingolfin said flatly. “I will avenge her.”

The sun dried them as they lay on the grassy slope. Summer hung heavy and somnolent, and the littoral of the sea shone like a pearl. The shadows lengthened. They did not speak, waiting for the night.

Maglor saw them come through the dusk, soundless, grave, radiant. He had been with his son for the Solstice. Tindómion had asked him. A shield against Gil-galad, Maglor supposed. But his son had laid a hand against his cheek and said, “For thee, _adar._ ”

He reminded Maglor of Fingolfin, with whom he never had to explain.  
“For thee also,” he suggested, smiling, at which Tindómion had laughed, a whit sardonically.  
“I will not deny it, but it is not that alone, father. I am concerned for thee, especially on these nights. Gil and I _enjoy_ our impasse, more or less.”

And Maglor did not. He remembered Nost-na-Lothion, with arousal, and with guilt, but unlike a true memory it slid from his mind's grasp like an animal, a little shy, wholly wild.  
 _Like trying to grasp fire..._  
Of course.

And so he had spent the Solstice night with his son. They rode leagues from the encampment, and stopped at dusk beside a stream fretted by willows whose heavy crowns had split their trunks asunder. Still they grew, breathing wet from deep in the earth, drawing finger-patterns in the water. They spoke, aloud, and then as night deepened, mind-to-mind, sharing thoughts, feelings and memories.  
Everything but Angmar. If the raid on Carn Dûm resulted in deaths for some or all, then Maglor did not doubt Fingolfin would announce it, for there were those who had a right to know. Tindómion had been friends with the sons of Elrond, and Maglor did not want to alarm him until it was necessary. But the next night, the dark of the moon, he decided he would be with Fingolfin, who, more than any-one, had given him something to hold, after Fëanor's death.

He had expected his father to be there, and watching them as they walked, he explored the lack of jealousy he felt at their closeness. Should there not have been some resentment? Yet he hung, poised like a dancer, or an arrow caught in flight, loving both, guilty, empathic of their bond, and feeling his own forming one of the perfect tripartite triangles that appeared over and over in Noldorin architecture. But those patterns were often set within others, and he knew the triangle of Fëanor, Fingolfin, Maglor was not complete unto itself. It connected with others, and one of them looked at him from kind, mocking violet eyes, a sardonic smile bending the corner of his mouth. What was he doing, far in the north, unable, as Glorfindel was unable, to do anything to help those who were preparing to enter Carn Dûm. He knew he could reach out, that Vanimórë would answer. He resisted.

“Maglor,” his father said softly, his tone of one pleasantly surprised, and smiling wonderfully. Fingolfin touched his arm, and they went inside the pavilion, open to the breeze from the sea but hidden from curious eyes. When they were seated with wine, Fëanor quietly, amusedly, explained what Finrod had done, how he had bound not only Celegorm but Glorfindel and Legolas also. Maglor recognized the sparkle of intrigued arousal in his father's eyes, but found it impossible to envisage Fëanor willingly abdicating his ego to such a degree. Then he thought of the black treachery and anguish that lay deeper than the Encircling Sea between Finrod and Celegorm, and understood why their cousin might choose to capture Celegorm through such a rite. But Glorfindel and Legolas? What lay behind that?

_He did betray Finrod,_ he said silently. All their speech together would be silent this night.

_They betrayed one another, so Finrod believes._ Fingolfin flashed his half-brother a hot blue-white glance. Fëanor looked back, mouth curved.

_I am not sure I could ever have forgiven thee for putting any-one or anything above_ me.

_As opposed to what thou didst to me?_

Maglor watched as his father laid his fingertips on Fingolfin's breast, caught the very edge of the vow: _Never again._ Then...  
 _It will do neither of them any harm to be forced into one another's company,_ Fëanor said thoughtfully. _And it is no-one's business but theirs._ Turning toward Maglor, he flashed a smile. _Thy son and Gil-galad should be in just such a situation._

_They enjoy their games, father._ Though Maglor agreed, and he thought his son would not object too strenuously either, were such a thing ever to come to pass.  
 _I wonder how many others will follow Finrod's example?_

_So do I wonder._ Fëanor's smile deepened.

_Not thou,_ Fingolfin stated.

_Not I, but wilt thou?_

_I am no king._

Fëanor shook his head. _Always a king, brother,_ he said. _Forever a king._

_A High King?_ Fingolfin's lips quivered. They were teasing one another Maglor saw, and Fëanor was deliberately drawing his half-brother into responding because he wanted to, because he loved Fingolfin, and was trying to water the wine of his fear.  
Maglor knew that the look he gave his father then was utterly unguarded, saying all that his lips never could. Or had they, on Nost-na-Lothion? He flushed, but did not look away.

Dana said, _Now._

The amusement faded from Fëanor's eyes, from Fingolfin's. Maglor saw in the latter's a blue spark of fear. Fëanor reached for their hands, laced their fingers together, then drew his brother toward him, kissed his mouth, hard and lingeringly. It did not seem as if Fingolfin responded, but the explosion within him was palpable as the opening of a kiln door, passing through Maglor's soul like a wind of flame.

_We face this together,_ Fëanor told him as Fingolfin drew back, and Maglor echoed, _Together,_ as he too, kissed his uncle, loving him.

_Now,_ his father said.

Blackness fell like a dropped cloak.

_Thou shalt see what I see,_ the Mother told them. _And do nothing._  
There was deep and endless pain in those words. Maglor understood it. It was how it felt to be helpless, to be unable to _do,_ and he glimpsed Dana's inner rage, was able to comprehend how it would feel to be Glorfindel and Vanimórë. And he had known this feeling as he watched his father die, his brothers. He gripped harder, felt the blood-pulse of the living under his fingers.

The darkness lightened to the close grey fleece of fog, and Maglor found himself watching a group of people. The sons of Elrond he recognized, Aredhel, and by her, Maeglin. (this with a pricking rush of anger) Elgalad. _Elgalad?_ Maglor was startled. How had he persuaded Vanimórë to let him go to Angmar?

_His choice,_ Dana whispered through the mist. _As it is Aredhel's choice._

Choice or no, Maglor could not believe that Vanimórë would have let Elgalad risk his life when once, and not long ago, he had killed him. It was only natural to want to protect the person one loved. Yet there was more than love: Vanimórë had come into his power through Elgalad's death.  
There was another with them, he saw dark skin, ruddy ropes of hair, but there was no time to consider. All were climbing up a strange sluice of wet black rock.

_The tower,_ Dana's voice murmured. _Coldagnir's fire melted it._

The strange being halted, wedging one foot and pointing up. She was half-orc, Maglor saw, odd and compelling as a poisonous plant, Man melting into orc, Her eyes were keen in the murk, her face sharp-featured. He was repelled and fascinated, noting how she watched the Elves wary and fearful as a fox.

_One of Saruman's breeding experiments,_ Dana informed them briefly.

They climbed, and then the melted rock gave way to the rough scars of the native mountain. The tower had run in a fume of liquid heat, wrenching at the surrounding walls, bringing down rubble and exposing the rock. Great cracks showed, certainly large enough for an Elf. Some looked as if they had been filled from the inside, but just above, one gaped clear, and Maglor saw a faint light bloom within. He looked down. The gulley vanished below them into the mist, perilously steep and slippery.

How strange this was, to be and not to be, as if he were houseless. Was this how it was for those who refused the call to the Halls of Waiting, how it had been in the Void? He could feel the fingers threaded through his own, even though he could see nothing of himself, and he tightened his hold, felt it reciprocated. He heard his fathers inimitable voice say, _Peace, my dear._

Both Fëanor and Fingolfin had known the Everlasting Dark.

So close to him that Maglor could have kissed the high cheekbone, Elgalad turned his head, looked south. There was such love in his face that it glowed in the fog-choked night.

_Oh no,_ Maglor thought. _Elgalad. Do not._

The pellucid grey eyes blinked, shifted, seemed to look into his for a moment, then back up to Carn Dûm. Elgalad said nothing, but his muscles tensed, and suddenly he leaped up the treacherous rock, past the _Peredhil,_ past the half-orc, to the gap. He stood on the edge, then slipped inside.

“Now,” Vanimórë said.

Zeva had watched them as the light slowly dimmed. They stood motionless gazing north. It was not dark. The sky blazed, and so far north, he had come to realize, it was never truly dark. It would be dark in Angmar. He shuddered, wrapping Vanimórë's cloak about him, inhaling the scent, and watched.

Coldagnir turned his head, kissed Vanimórë's mouth, and then he ran. Into the sky. Titan wings of fire unfurled from nothing, clapped and rushed, bearing him aloft. He whirled, twisting in a uprushing blossom of flame, hair slashing outward like whips, eyes ablaze, windows onto his being, his truest self, and he rose and rose until he became a red-gold star that raced, straight as an arrow, toward Angmar. And then he dropped, like a meteor hurled from the hand of God.

Not too close to Carn Dûm, Vanimórë had warned him, and not too far. Enough to panic those within the fortress, to terrify Malantur afresh, perhaps to spoil whatever unearthly rites he performed on this night.

Coldagnir struck the taiga like a fireball, shock-waves lapping outward and striking the mountains in a concatenation of thunder.

And Carn Dûm trembled to its roots. ~

 

~~~  



	31. ~ Hate Is The Dark Twin Of Love ~

“We must talk,” Glorfindel said.

“Of course.” Finrod gestured toward his tent.

“Alone.”

“Surely not alone, my dear.” Finrod's mouth curled up a little. “I think we have all relinquished our privacy for a time, have we not?”

There was a sudden movement as Celegorm spun on one foot and walked away. Finrod watched him go. His smile deepened.

_Does he really think he can leave?_

_Of course not. But he would not be Fëanor's son if he did not try._  
The brothers laughed. Their eyes met, then both looked at Legolas.

“I thank thee.” Finrod touched Legolas' face. He felt Glorfindel's brief flash of rage. It struck his nerves like sparks from a fire, and he saw the same reaction widen Legolas' eyes. They shared a private smile.

“For what?” Legolas asked.

“For understanding.”

“All your people will come to understand in time, Finrod.”

In the pavilion servants brought them wine and silently left. Finrod gestured to the piles of cushions and sat back with a sigh.

“ _I_ understand,” Glorfindel pushed his hands into his hair. _Vengeance._

 _A fairly mild one,_ Finrod responded with a gleam.

_Thou art ever surprising._

_Am I?_

Glorfindel drank, set the cup aside.  
 _Wise, valiant Finrod, thou knowest thou art._

Legolas was smiling again.

 _It was me, was it not?_ Glorfindel continued. _If I had not defied father, if he had not cast me from his house, perhaps thou wouldst not have tried so hard to be the son he wanted._

Finrod lifted a hand. “Why are we not speaking aloud? I have nothing now to conceal. I never should have. No, beloved, thou didst show me the way, and I did not take it. I made my private vows because it was easier than the path thou didst tread.”

“Do not impugn thine honour.”

“Honour?” Finrod laughed without mirth. “Call it stubbornness and have done. Or cowardice. When I had the chance to live as I would, I did not.”

“The _Aran Laer_ takes great courage,” Legolas said. “I told you what would happen, and you did not flinch from it. Many would have.”

“I had to do it,” the king said simply. “As I said. For me.”

Glorfindel shook his head. “Legolas speaks truly. That did take great courage, but the _Aran Laer_ is one night, Finrod. We all became something... _other._ But thou hast chosen thy brides for a year and one day.”

“Yes. A pity that the time is so short.”

The words brought an odd expression to Glorfindel's face. He breathed, “Thou art anticipating this.”

“The Summer King does not feel the night as the others do,” Legolas told him. “He is the sacrifice. That is the price and the power of the rite.”

“I felt everything,” Finrod concurred, easing his bruised body deeper into the pillows. “Every _one_. Legolas told me that the participants experience it differently, becoming part of the power. Thou art indeed _other,_ something beyond human. I...” He traced impossible words in the air with a hand. “ _'There will be pleasure,'_ Legolas promised. ' _But first there will be blood, and pain.'_ And there was. The rite chained me. I gave all of myself. Art thou embarrassed, Glorfindel?” He glanced at Legolas. “Dost thou hate me?”

“Hate thee!” Glorfindel stared, put out a hand. “No. How canst thou ask me that? Am I jealous, _yes._ I do not think this will be easy.”

“ _'I have no regrets,'_ ” Finrod quoted at him, watching his brother's hard, lovely face. “ _'Even now, I could do all again, and feel no guilt, Summer King.'_ ”

Glorfindel's cheeks flushed, rather to Finrod's delight, and Legolas' too, by the sparkle of laughter that jumped into his eyes.  
“I do not, but thou hadst not chosen thy consort then. _Consorts,_ ” he corrected. He turned to Legolas. “I knew,” he said softly. “I knew thou wouldst want him.” And he was addressing both. “Thou art very alike.”

The wood-Elf threw him a perfectly provocative challenge from under the shadow of his lashes.  
“I know you,” he whispered. “You knew this would happen. If you had truly wanted to prevent it, you would have found a way. You _want_ to unloose the shackles. You want _this._ It excites you.” He smiled. “Good. It should.”

There was a moment of tension that snapped like a fire, then Glorfindel sprang, catching Legolas by the shoulders, and Legolas' arched back as his red tunic was ripped from shoulder to hem. He wrapped his arms around Glorfindel's neck, lifting long legs to grip his lover's waist, and he laughed, then gasped, throwing back his head as Glorfindel pushed into him. They went down onto the rugs and Finrod hardened as Legolas moaned and hissed like a wild-cat, his fingers delving into Glorfindel's hair, imprinting his back with red marks. There was such beauty in it, profound harmony, untamed and untameable desire, the finest, purest lust. And, oh Eru yes, _excitement,_ a blood-thrill tinged with fear of what they called all arouse in one another.

_This is how we should be. And Fëanor always knew it._

Finrod writhed, throbbed in time to Glorfindel's thrusts, Legolas' panting pleas. “More. Yes. _This._ ”

Glorfindel slammed Legolas' hands back, riding savagely into him, and Legolas head tossed and he screamed as he came. Finrod felt his own voice echo it, his seed warm on his hand, an explosion of gold in his loins. His body relaxed, and he watched under his lashes as they came to him, felt the twinned kisses on his mouth, the smooth slide of limbs against his, the fall of heavy hair. He heard, _I love thee._ And, _Sleep._ His arms curled about them, but before he succumbed he plucked the chord that bound Celegorm to him. It thrummed like a harp-string, like an exposed nerve.

~~~

“Then try to leave,” Huan challenged calmly.

“Art thou telling me I _cannot_? That I have no will in this?” Celegorm slapped his hand against a tree, looking down at the knoll, the roof-tree of Finrod's pavilion. He had climbed one of the hills to the west. There was a breeze up here, whispering in his hair.  
“I thought we were free, now,” he protested.

“Of thine _own will_ thou hast bound thyself.” The Maia looped his arms about one bare leg and laughed up at him. Another silvery laugh answered him, and Celegorm turned to see Daeron and the Iathrim twins. They came to him, those rich lapis eyes innocent and knowing and wanton.

“Why wouldst thou not want this, Celegorm Fëanorion?” Elurín trailed his fingers down Celegorm's chest. “He is so – ”

“ – _good,_ ” Eluréd whispered, slipping behind to whisper against Celegorm's ear. He bit, lightly. “Cream and wine. Delicious.”

Always with these two came the instinctive flinch at remembered rape, the quickening, the peculiar pity meshed with the desire to protect.  
“Hast thou ever done such a thing?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” they replied together.

“With the wild Elves of the north,” Elurín explained. “And are we not always bound to many different people?” He looked around at Daeron, who smiled a quiet, very private smile. His somber silver-black beauty somehow anchored the fey twins, Celegorm realized. He was rooted to the earth, they drifted, but his hold on their hearts always drew them back.

“I thought it would be we two, alone.” He did not dismiss the power of the rite, but had believed that king or no, _he_ would have the upper hand in the relationship. It could even have been amusing for Finrod to have no choice but to accept Celegorm.  
Except...Finrod had known, and made it absolutely clear that he would not be so manipulated.

“Thou didst share him with us,” Eluréd reminded him, lilting back to Daeron's side and slipping an arm about his waist. “Thou didst share thyself with us.”

Elurín pressed a hot, light kiss on his mouth, tapped his cheek. “Yes, lovely Celegorm; learn to share.”

Yes, he had shared before, in the wildness of the Winter Solstice, Nost-na-Lothion, and last night, but always before he had been the lover who controlled the situation. It was for him to dictate the when and the how of the relationship, the lovemaking. It incensed him to realize he would not be able to.  
 _Or can I? My father would. he knows no other way._  
He thought he heard a rich, amused ripple of laughter.

“Thou canst not renege on this,” Daeron murmured, as Elurín joined him.

“Is that what thou art?” Celegorm asked suddenly. “Their Summer King?”

The moss-green eyes held his.  
“There are no bonds more powerful than love,” Daeron said simply, “Whatever I am, I am theirs.”

“And Finrod is mine.”

Huan caught his face, turned it. “And thou art his. Ask thy father if it ever runs only one way.”

They left, all four, to hunt. Celegorm ascended the hill walked in the broad afternoon of the valley, only half hearing the murmur of Finrod's people, a snatch of music, languid laughter. Here, rough green hills tumbled into secret wooded valleys. Finrod had chosen his land well; further north a spur of the Orocarni pushed west, acting as a barrier to winter winds. There was a wealth of game, rich soil in the valleys, good stone to quarry. Little wonder that Finrod, whose kingdom in Middle-earth had been underground, yearned for open skies and pine-dark hills and the backdrop of stupendous mountains. Celegorm had seen the palaces and mansions rising, and remembered Nargothrond, the gallery high above the Narog, the times they spent there together, the sweetness of it. A chord sounded in his soul, echoed down the Ages.

_I do not want to share him._

He looked up, stopped. The sun was to his left, still high, pacing slowly west. But he had walked south-east.  
The green knoll rose before him, empty now, sleeping under the sun. There were a few people lazing like cats beside the stream, under the trees, turning bright, distant eyes to him.

_But I was walking away._

Finrod's tent was pitched directly in his path. There were no guards, no sound from within. Bemused, furiously embarrassed, Celegorm glared at the blind blue-green walls as if he could see the thread linking him to Finrod, that had drawn him back here.

 _I am such a fool,_ he snarled at himself, and paced across to the pavilion, lifting the flap.

They slept in a sleek tangle of hair and sinew, oblivious and lovely. Celegorm felt the strength drain from his knees, and sank down jealous and hungry until awareness snapped blue stars into Finrod's eyes and he smiled into Celegorm's.

 _Come, join us,_ he said, sweetly commanding.

  
~~~

  
Memory ambushed him, and spat him out into fetid darkness. The cell was damp but not cold, indeed the flags of the floor felt warm. At first, confusedly, he thought he had been captured and taken to Dol Guldur. But no, Dol Guldur was emptied, the dungeons uncovered, the prisoners released, or those that lived. He had not been there. Orcs had attacked Alphgarth during the war, and later he received reports from scouts that black uruks were fleeing along the skirts of the Ered Mithrim. The wood-Elves had slain many, and after, there had been mourning and celebration mingled.

Yet it had not been the passing of Sauron that changed everything, but the awakening, the tremendous knowledge given to the Elves by Glorfindel. The Elves of the Greenwood might have little ado with the Valar, but that did not mean they were untouched by them. Some would answer the call of Mandos in death, for the Doomsman of the Valar had been granted that power. An Elf might choose to heed that call or not, but if they did, and had broken the Valarin laws either deliberately or in ignorance, they would have come before Mandos' judgement. There would have been no rebirth – until now. A wind of anticipation ran across the forest at the thought of the dead returning, though not all; the wood-Elves knew which souls lingered houseless.

Bainalph did not visit the Elven-king's halls unless a council was called, or at the Summer Solstice, when any of Thranduil's subjects might participate, but Bainalph habitually presided over his own rituals. Thranduil was his king, but Alphgarth was his home; he had made it so, the only fiefdom of Greenwood to survive the darkness that had spread from Dol Guldur, by binding himself to his people and the land in the old ways. And, like the Earth itself, the _Aran Laer_ had two faces, one benign, one pitiless, for folk thus bound to their land would never surrender, never flee, but die rather. And so they had, and the ancient fiefs were left to the houseless and the spiders, all but the king's halls and Alphgarth.

After the war the freed power of the Elves was unleashed across Mirkwood and it became Eryn Lasgalen once more. Even Bainalph was invited to that great feast, the folk of Lórien mingling with those of the Great Wood. There was no change in Thranduil's demeanor toward him, yet Bainalph hoped – until the long, rich autumn faded and everything changed with Glorfindel's apotheosis.  
He had never met Glorfindel, but he had heard of him from Legolas, even as he had heard of Vanimórë Gorthaurion from Elgalad who had not known the identity of the man he loved. There was a dark poetry, Bainalph thought, in the juxtaposition of a Finwion and Sauron's son, both with powers that outstripped the Valars. But all he knew of the Valar had been told to him by his parents, and they had learned it from Melian in Doriath. True, they had been people of the Great Journey, and had seen Tauron, but Valinor and the powers that dwelled there meant naught to Bainalph. Yet the unearthing of the Valars crimes, the release of captives from the Void did affect all Elves; every-one in the forest knew those who had died and had, they believed, answered the call to Mandos. To realize that they might have been damned was horrific, to learn of their release and possible return to Middle-earth, was a cause for thanksgiving.

It was strange how hope endured, how swiftly and decisively it could be smashed. The winter after the war Thranduil held a solstice feast and again, Alphgarth was invited, as was customary. Bainalph invariably sent representatives, tacitly acknowledging that the king did not desire his presence. But this time, he was named. And so he went, curious, high of heart, and felt Thranduil's mood close like a net of thorns against his skin. He watched as the king rose from his seat, hair loose in a wealth of old-gold to his knees.

“Let us drink,” he said. “To the return of my queen.”

There was a burst of astonished questions.

“Legolas spoke to her in Valinor,” Thranduil told them. “The years have been long, but now the Straight Road is open to those who would return. Eryn Lasgalen will have a queen again.”

He lifted a cup of silver and amber in both hands, drank as his people drank, and over the rim his eyes met Bainalph's.

For a moment, quiet amid the celebration, Bainalph hated the king, yet he enacted his role as a prince, a courtier, until he could leave without insult. There was no-one he could speak to; the only people beside the king who knew of the brief liaison were gone, Legolas with Glorfindel far into the east, and Elgalad with the son of Sauron.

_He wanted to see my face as he announced Níniwen's return._

And yet Bainalph could not hate the queen. It would take a very twisted soul to resent such as Níniwen, and though the king might have called her his _swansdown maid_ , there was strength under her warm softness, as if her spine were a slender steel rod driving deep into the earth. Bainalph had met her only a handful of times, but with her death, shadows gathered in the Greenwood, and Thranduil's eyes. Only then did he participate in the old traditions; it was said he had never felt the need to before. Those who had known him the longest believed he had never taken a lover while he was married, and he had married very young. Even had the king embraced the rituals and taken consorts, what lay between he and Bainalph was not sanctioned by any ancient, sacred rite. Bainalph had seduced the king because he desired him. He could look back and see himself, all trembling half-understood urges, the first opening buds of the passion that flowered so thickly among the Elves and, if fed, bloomed all their long lives. He had _wanted,_ with all the fear and longing of youth, but had not truly known _what_ he wanted until the wild night that gave birth, in Thranduil at least, to a wilder hate.

Bainalph had been made to realize without possibility of denial, that the king held him in contempt. He admitted he deserved it, for Thranduil had not approached him, was loyal to his queen and desired no lover. In the days after, Bainalph, his mother gone for a year, his father dead in Mordor, with three years to pass until his fiftieth begetting day, struggled alone. He knew his people loved him, but he also knew that they should love him for himself, for his deeds and his care toward them and Alphgarth, not because he was the son of Cúalph and Uirephíl. His counselors were pleased with him thus far, but seducing the king was not likely to redound to his credit. He wondered if Thranduil would deem him unfit to rule, and determined to prove that he could, his newly discovered sexual _mores_ notwithstanding, but an apology must be offered. Riding to the halls, he attempted to speak to the king alone, and found himself stammering into mortified silence at the look in those winter-blue eyes. Raising a hand, the king took a handful of his braided hair and jerked. Bainalph's breath caught, his head flung back, his groin flooding with blood.

“You will _never_ speak of this!” Thranduil's voice was ice and stone. “You will leave the halls now. You will never come here unless summoned. Your position on the council of lords is titular until I decide you have earned it. Until then you will appoint a regent in your place.” His grip tightened, and Bainalph's mouth parted involuntarily, his eyes closing in fear and arousal. Then the hold slackened, and his braids chimed, and a hand thrust him roughly back.  
“Get hence, _now!_ Get from my sight! Do you even know what you have done?” The words were very soft, very dangerous, aching with rage. “By what _right_ did you come to me? Did I ever give you reason to believe that I wanted to betray my queen?”

Bainalph shook his head. He could have said, _“Then why did you look at me the way you did? And why did you take me, not once but many times?”_ but he did not. He was learning, quickly, brutally, and the question anyhow was purely rhetorical. Feeling peculiarly light and hot, cheeks burning, he walked to the door.Thranduil's voice fell on his back like a spear.

“Be sure you understand me, Cúalphii. _You_ are not welcome here. It would not displease me if you were to die.”

Bainalph turned, wide eyed. _Die?_ he thought in bewilderment. Then he bowed with all the dignity he could muster, and left the room.

Death came very close that winter, orcs and Fell-wolves coming down with the snow. When relief came from the king, they found Bainalph fighting on the bodies of dead orcs, black blood thick in his hair. But he did not die; he had a duty to Alphgarth, to his people, to the king, and he was a prince of the old blood of Doriath. He lived and fought and loved, pursuing his own affairs, constructing a reputation as one who took lovers lightly and enjoyed receiving pain and pleasure in the bedchamber. He _did_ enjoy it, the king had shown him that, and he thought that Thranduil too had experienced a revelation that autumn night.  
And Bainalph grew to hope as the years turned, for he understood that hate was the dark twin of love, and Thranduil did not treat him with indifference, that barren ground where nothing could grow. Indeed, so fierce and so vital was his hate, that the fire lit between them was never permitted to die.

How strange that he should feel so bereft. Bainalph had no claim on the king, nothing but a time between dark and dawn, when an autumn storm lashed Alphgarth's white walls. Yet some part of him still lived it, was always there, in the king's guest chamber, a new world opening to him with the wonder of submission, the embracing of pain, the ecstasy that became so inseparable to it. Thrice, Thranduil had ordered him from the room, only to draw him back violently, until when Bainalph did leave, he could scarcely walk. One night reawakened in the meeting of eyes, the touches that could sometimes not be avoided at feast or council or in battle.

Bainalph told himself nothing had changed, but for him everything had. Around him was music and laughter, and he and the king might have been alone. The steel-blue eyes held his and pushed home the dagger. Bainalph folded his will around the hurt, and inclined his head.

Perhaps he became reckless. The night when the orcs attacked he had been determined to enjoy the stars beyond the forest, allow his people to eat and drink, sing and love, but there was a coiled spring within him that unwound. It span like the edge of a sword into the orcs, and kept spinning, fed by the anguish buried deep in his soul. When he saw the first Elf fall, madness ripped like sheet-lightning through him. He did not know how far he ran, nor how many orcs he slew when he came to the mountain pass. There were only impressions flicking through the seething violence in his veins.

After, came a time of confusion and rage, a man's face with tawny hair and eyes, an ebony-skinned female, another man broad as an ox. And then...viscid blackness flooded his throat, gouged holes in his eyes. A creature oozed out of it, a man who was no man. Dead screams ached inside his bones. Bainalph snarled at him, rope fraying under his muscles, scoring his wrists, snapping. Dry meat dented under his fingers, fear yelled from bulging eyes, and fire-bitten words wrote themselves into his brain. The world dwindled to nothing.

Later there was the cell, another man who grinned with long, yellow teeth and raped him, made him gag and curse with the feel and stench. This was not pain and pleasure, but raw violation. It never lasted long. It lasted forever. The man cut him, and his blood wept a lament as it idled into dark phials. A mad-man laughed, a boy screamed, and bells clamored a tocsin of war. Bainalph's soul thrashed and coiled inward. He looked at himself down a long tunnel. Bainalph, the Beautiful Swan, prince of Alphgarth.

_Agar a baneth._

Blood, anyway.  
One night the room shook, casting him out of himself. Something fell and fell, a long landslide of noise like the ruin of a world. The door shuddered, red light licked underneath it. There was a sense of heat and burning beauty, and the madman wailed. Bainalph waited, barely breathing, as the echoes of power sank and a cowed silence seeped from the stone. The earth grumbled to itself deep below. He wondered if this cell had been buried, and found that he cared, that he could feel fear and fight against it.

Darkness welled back, crouching round him, but after a time, a glow breathed beneath the door. Daylight? It was so long since he had seen anything but reeking torchlight that his eyes feasted upon it. He felt as he once had after being stung by a great spider, weak and languid, but roused from stupor. The terrible monotony of his imprisonment had been broken, reminded him that there was a world beyond these walls, that closed door. But Bainalph could not reach the door, even were it open. He gazed at the frail light, thought he smelled rain, and closed his eyes.

_Agar a baneth._

The earth still murmured its displeasure when the rapist came again, two men holding Bainalph down while the other took him with quick, furtive savagery. Bainalph held to what he was, repeating what he was, the motto of his house because it was all he could do. As the man left, he turned his head to the flare of light from outside, slamming all his impotent rage into the eyes that stared back at him. They were catlike, golden and Bainalph remembered that dislocated journey, a taste that stung and roared in his throat, fogged his mind in black fleece. The door closed on him.

_Agar a baneth._

That drink...  
He forced himself to his feet, to the trough. It was filled every so often, and tasted fresh but for an underlying metallic tang, which Bainalph hardly heeded. He could dip his head and drink like an animal, douse his face but could not wash his body. Sometimes a guard threw buckets of water into the cell, which ran off into a hole in the floor. That was the extent of his ablutions.

 _No._  
The warning sounded like a bell. He closed his eyes. _The black drink._ A taste like blood and rust and sloe-berries...

_It is in the water...  
Not much. Enough to keep me tamed._

He was thirsty, but dared not slake it. The water contained the reason for his apathy, his retreat into memory until the fog was burned from his mind by a clean power that hissed in his veins. He trembled, recognized the onset of shock too long delayed. Screams ranked one behind the other in his throat, and he swallowed them, pushing his mind away from the rank stench of the guard's spilled seed, the visceral _feel_ of rape. He was _not_ going to die of violation.

Scalding tears came, but silently.

~~~

They had followed of course; those who could. It had been a small and impromptu gathering, a hawking party enjoying the spring sun. When Bainalph suggested they spend the night under the stars, they agreed. There had been joy and pleasure, too much perhaps, and the light wind had carried the scent of the orcs away from them. But they followed their prince, seeing the evidence of his passing in the litter of twisted dead, until he vanished as if he had been sucked into the earth.  
It was Thirvain the huntress who found two sets of booted feet near a dead orc, smaller and slimmer than orc-feet and well-shod. One, she decided, was a woman. But the thin soil of the pass soon melted unto shale and rock and told no other tale, though they spread out and searched.

“There is no body, at least.”  
Clouds were gathering like a glower on the peaks above.

“Scant comfort.” Edenel the bard stared up the pass. 

The huntress shook her head, frowning. “Some of them were not orcs, I think.”

“Men?” he demanded. “Wolfsheads? They would be no better. And he would have killed them like the orcs.”

Thirvain stared toward the head of the pass. “Perhaps they overpowered him somehow. He was not armed for war.”

“Then they will take him to their dens.” The bard's eyes were hard as agate.

She nodded. “And we may not have much time.” Raising her head she whistled. A merlin plummeted down in a flash of slate blue and wild eye, settled on her wrist.  
“We send to Alphgarth,” she told them, as the falcon took to the air again, speeding east. “And to the king.”

~~~

Gwaewind, who had once ruled a fief in the Westwood, brought the news from the border himself. He had known Thranduil since the latter was a child. The two were close. Gwaewind had been the king's consort several times, but there were certain areas of Thranduil's life into which even he would not pry. The Elven-king could be formidable. He was also extremely acute, and it took only one look at Gwaewind's face to wipe the smile from his own.  
He stilled, hands resting on the map where the ancient borders of the fiefdoms had been redrawn. The cresets flickered, sparking from the long silver chains that fell from temple to shoulder.  
“Vanished?” he repeated. His voice, thought Gwaewind, was very strange, as if the sinews of his throat had tightened around the word.

“They can find no sign of him, Sire. And no...remains. Yet.”

The king's eyes were otherwhere, gone dark as blued steel.  
“What was the fool doing?” He came to his feet in a movement that screamed.

“The lands beyond the forest have been quiet. Perhaps he thought –”

“A homestead was raided last winter.” Thranduil slammed a hand down on the map. “And the hillmen found Uruk-hai out of Isenguard.”

“And slew them, Sire, our reports said.”

“Who can say there would not be more?” The king snarled. “Sauron may be gone, but orcs will still breed, there will always be wolfsheads and wars on Middle-earth. How could he be so _stupid!_ ”

Gwaewind waited, then said, “His warriors will be marching.”

“Of course they will,” the king responded with a tense, bitter edge to his voice. “And if he has been taken by orcs, it is already too late.” He turned his back. “Send a message to those who remain of his party. They are not to search for him.”

“ _Thranduil!_ ” Gwaewind rounded the table and caught the king by the shoulders. They were hard as oak. Thranduil spun, breaking his hold. His face was the colour of a river pearl. Fear and wrath battled like the clash or armies in his eyes.  
“Send this as a command from their king: the survivors will retreat and wait for aid. The Cúalphii would not want them risking their lives, you know that.” He strode to the door, and flung over his shoulder: “And Alphgarth's main force will wait for _me._ Have the bells sound the tocsin. Now.”

The living bell-towers of the Greenwood had once rang across the forest alerting the wood-Elves to attack, summoning the warriors. As darkness sweated from Dol Guldur and the old fiefdoms fell or were abandoned, they became the haunt of bat and spider, only maintained between the king's halls and Alphgarth. Now, the woods cleansed, the bells hung from the boughs of the mighty oaks once more, rocking faintly with the movement of their host, but tolled only at times of celebration. Until now.

The air shafts brought the first stroke down into the halls, and the Elves stopped as the stone hummed. A pause and it tolled again, rolling across the forest. This was no peal of jubilation, but a call to war. 

  
~~~

  
Elladan mouthed a curse as Elgalad vanished into the crack. There was no sound from within, and when Aredhel climbed past him, Maeglin with her, he let them pass. Once up, Aredhel pulled at the half-orc's bonds. The woman went up agile as a lizard. Beleg followed. The Peredhil looked at one another, then as one, paused and stared down into the gulley. There was no noise, nothing but the faint drip of water somewhere. But for a moment the air had changed, stirred the mist with a scent of ferns and leaves and secret flowers; the exhalation of a summer forest.

_There is something..._

_I know._

But there was no time to investigate or linger. They lifted themselves lightly up and into the gap.

~~~

Elgalad moved across the floor so silently even the crumbs of broken stone did not shift under his boots. A torch spluttered to his left, but the light did not reach him. It was dark but not black; smokey-grey, showing the fallen rubble, a line of shuttered doors marching into shadow. The others melted in behind him and spread out, mute, alert. Elgalad tilted his head, crossed and reached out, touched metal, wood old and hard as stone. But the hinges were oiled.

_Near where the temple stood. Near the Mouth's chambers. For when his blood is needed._

This was not mere chance.

 _Pain. Anger. Sorrow. I am under the shadow. I can_ feel. I can hear.

Voices sounded further up the corridor, sharp, metallic. There was a hoarse bray of laughter. The Elves turned, bow-strings drew taut, fingers curled about sword hilts. Shadows loomed against the light-spattered wall.  
And then came the sound, rising, piling like a breaking wave, slamming through the mountains, rattling the fortress in its black bedrock. Stone shifted, fell, and dust jumped from the floor. There was a shout of fear, a scrabbling scurry, the Mens shadows lurched and disappeared. No-one wanted to be trapped underground in a rock fall, and they knew what had happened to the tower.

 _Coldagnir._ Elgalad released a held breath. _I thank thee._ He stepped to the closest door, and spread his fingers. Air welled and trapped in his throat. He saw, as if through the wood, a bruised, lovely face, gold-green eyes half-hidden by clouds of creamy hair now stained by blood and dirt. A mouth born to kiss was set in desperate resolve.

_Bainalph._

He shouldered his bow, lifted the bar in its brackets.

~~~

He mocked his futile efforts as his fingers picked at the chains about his wrists. They were iron, old as this place was old, but still strong, a sleeping sorcery within it. The rapist had told him if he struggled too hard the chains would tighten, his hands turn black and rot for lack of blood. The thought was terrible, and no mere threat. Perhaps that was why they had wanted to keep him passive, so that he would not attempt to injure or kill himself. They were taking his blood, and that would cease if he died. He remembered the man-thing he had attacked, knew instinctively that it was he who wanted the blood because...

 _Because he felt dead, like meat dried in the sun...some corrupted Man crawling out from under Sauron's defeat..._  
 _Is my blood keeping him alive? Does he think it is?_ His mouth curled in contempt and loathing. _Agar a baneth. I hope it sickens you._

His mind was clearer now, and he had turned it on the present, the past, with all the acuity he could still summon, because despair was too easy. Tracing what he could recall of his forced march to this place, putting pieces of the puzzle together like potsherds, he believed he knew where he was, and who the Man might be. It was horrifying if true, but he had felt the power there, it had been driven into him on darts of agony. If his blood was needed, they might keep him alive a very long time.

 _Oh, Eru._  
He locked his teeth against the screams.  
 _I have to fight. I have to escape._

The memory-swirl drew him back.

_Bainalph._

In the darkness, his head lifted sharply toward the door. He smelled steel shaped into a sword, drawn white from a forge, the cold mineral scent of gems, water cupped in a mossy hollow, bronze leaves whipped by an autumn gale, hawthorn blossom. Slowly, he gathered himself and rose.

The concussion staggered him, the floor shivering like a wet dog, and the sound rolled thunderously, deep under his feet. He half-fell against the door, saved himself with his hands as he sought for balance.

_What is happening?_

The door began to swing open. Bainalph, assaulted by greater light, threw himself back, almost tangling in the chains. Some-one stepped in on a cloud of sweetness. Silver hair was drawn back from a face like a white rose. The great eyes looked black as they drank all the light there was, but Bainalph knew they were clear as the first rains of spring.

“Bainalph,” Elgalad whispered. “Oh, my dear. ”

Bainalph shaped a sound of disbelief, and fell into his arms.

~~~

 

  
This is a Jankolas (Deviant Art) picture which I like as another look-a-like for Bainalph in a somber mood, one that people rarely see, (and because of the beads in his cloud of pale hair.) Maybe he is looking at Thranduil, unobserved by any-one. (It's actually Beleg, but as the Amroth pic on AFFS which I use as a reference for Thranduil, I like this one as Bainalph.)

 


	32. ~ The Touch Of A Warrior's Hands ~

  
~ Words caressed his mind as slender hands soothed him, a warriors hands tempered to gentleness. Water flowed through his hair, down his body, and he drank the clean chill, thirsty, grateful. Some-one pressed a flask to his lips, and he swallowed. It was cool on his tongue, a hot coal in his stomach that dissolved outward, warm in his veins like the tears he had shed. Faces he did not know swam into his view, a shimmer of liquid black hair, lucent eyes. He realized he was trying to speak, to tell them of the madman, the blood, and that they already knew.

Thank Eru some-one had known.

A man told him to stretch his hands out, to spread his feet. He was tall, very beautiful, his face shaped from marble and memories. The chains hung heavy. They were melted into the stone, wound about Bainalph's wrists and ankles. He thought one of the guards must have the key; he did not know, but the chains had never been unlocked.

 _No matter._ A little grim smile flared like laughter in ice-grey eyes, and a sword rose, shadowy in the dimness. White fire kissed the blade.  
 _Do not move._

Elgalad's hands closed on Bainalph's shoulders, and the black blade sang mockery at the chains. They whispered apart. Bainalph stared mutely at the severed links. He had heard of only two blades that could cleave iron so easily. One was legend, and forged in a world long sunk under the waves. Forged by...  
He looked up sharply. The man's eyes met his, then he knelt, and he and Elgalad began, very carefully, to unwind the links. It seemed to take a long time, but at last they lay in cold coils, and Elgalad gave him to drink again, then tenderly washed the ingrained dirt. Bruises had blossomed and died and flowered again. The others watched, and knowing how must appear, Bainalph raised his chin, a barrier against their pity.

“I will come in a moment,” Elgalad said, asking for privacy, and they slipped out, all save one, who paused. He might have been Elgalad's brother, with that same sweet gravity of expression, but another quality in the beautiful armature of his skull stirred an elusive memory.  
 _He has died,_ Bainalph thought, as had the one who cut his bonds. How he knew, he could not have explained; their eyes held a peculiar otherwhere quality, as if they gazed upon two lives. The warrior touched his face, dropped a kiss on his brow.  
“We cannot linger,” he told Elgalad.

“Why are you here?” Bainalph asked, when he had gone. His voice came a little more clearly. “ _How_?”

Elgalad shook something from his pack, it smelled of doeskin, felt butter-smooth under Bainalph's hands. Breeches. All warriors hunting in the wild took clothing lest something were damaged or soiled by blood and battle. His own had been stripped from him. If nudity were supposed to shame him, his captors knew nothing of Elves, but it had made him feel vulnerable, and he was glad to pull them on. His fingers shook a little as he tightened the laces. He was sore, but healing. The brief-lingering pain had always been a reminder of bliss; now it was tarnished with the look and smell, the furtive brutality of his rapist.  
Elgalad rose, said very softly, combing his hands through Bainalph's wet hair, “We came to free the p-prisoners, the people of Angmar. Vanimórë and I journeyed t-to Imladris from D-Dale.”

“You did not know I was here?”

“N-no. I wish I h-had. We came upon a half-orc w-woman when we crossed into Angmar. She bore th-this.”

Something glinted in the faint light, and Bainalph caught the pendant.

“ _Agar a baneth._ ” Elgalad clasped it about his throat, then moved to stand before him. He looked unearthly in this place, an argent flame, and Bainalph feared that he had fallen into madness, his mind weaving visions that would sink into the walls and leave him bereft. He reached out to reassure himself of the reality, and Elgalad clasped his hands.

“I know,” he murmured. “Th-this is real.”

“I was feckless,” Bainalph said wryly. “I was following orcs who attacked us. Alone. Then there were the half-orcs, almost like men, and a drink, black as coal...Do you know what happened to my people?”

Elgalad shook his head, clear eyes searching his face.  
“Th-the woman said there were no m-more Elves here. She may b-be lying, but I think n-not.”

Bainalph hoped the survivors of his party had returned to Alphgarth. That his folk would search for him he had no doubt, but his captors had taken him through the Hithaeglir, not over them. The memory was smoky, but he retained a sense of stifling darkness. It would not be an easy trail to follow. He hoped no-one would try.

“Then no-one knew,” he murmured to himself, and closed his eyes.

“Bainalph,” Elgalad's intensity dragged him from the memory. “Thou m-must not die of th-this!”

“ _This?_ ” He reached for insouciance, found it very far away, and lifted his brows. “You know I enjoy enacting the slave.”

“ _Hush._ ” Elgalad drew him close, and he knew then how close to despair he had been, refusing to accept it, warding it off as the timeless horror of his captivity stretched ponderously behind and before him. He clung, felt the strong, swift beat of Elgalad's heart, steely muscle under warm skin.  
“I _felt_ th-thee. Now we are under the shadow, I c-can feel. We met the woman, I came to this cell. That w-was not mere chance. I was _m-meant_ to find thee, and thou wilt n-not die. There h-has been blood. Now th-there is only beauty.”

Bainalph laughed a little. It sounded ragged, hushing against the dank stone.  
“They took that, my dear. Yet I live.”

“Never.” Elgalad drew back and gazed at him, cupped his face. “It is n-not in their power to t-take it from thee.”

He could not help but smile.  
“I have vowed I will not die. Who are they?” He tilted his head toward the door.

“The sons of Elrond.”

He had guessed that. “And the reborn _Golodhrim_? For they are, are they not? All save the one. And I think I know who he is.”

“Yes.” Elgalad hesitated, then, “There w-were eight of us, but only six c-came here. Elladan and Elrohir, Beleg C-Cúthalion, Aredhel, daughter of Fingolfin and Maeglin, her son. Vanimórë cannot enter Angmar. H-He waits to the south.”

“Beleg,” Bainalph repeated. Names of tragedy. Names of power. He had heard that the returned _Golodhrim_ had gone far to the east. And Beleg?  
“Thranduil's grandsire.” He remembered the kiss, the affection. Little wonder he had not immediately connected the resemblance between them.  
“Why?” But Thranduil had said, _“The Straight Road is open to those who would return.”_ Why not Beleg? _This is not about me at all,_ he realized. _This is ancient and terrible and beautiful. This is legend._

“There is m-much I must tell thee.” Elgalad glanced toward the door. “But there is no time.”

Bainalph nodded. “Find me a weapon,” he said, flexing his wrists, and waited for the protest. It came.  
“There is a w-way out, just across from th-this cell. That is n-no chance either. Angmar is quiet beyond the fortress, and thou wouldst – ”

“No.” He heard the word come full and firm. “There must be blood.”

“We cannot k-kill the Mouth.” Elgalad's hands cupped his face. “That d-destiny belongs to another. An ancient oath h-has awoken. But he is b-breeding orcs to w-women.”

A hard knot began to unclench in Bainalph's stomach, hot and white as lightning: the battle rage, that if directed was so deadly, and had been helpless like he, under the chains and the black drink. But the chains were off now.  
“I will fight with you and Cúthalion, and even beside the _Golodhrim,_ ” he enunciated calmly. “There is a man who used me and took my blood. I will take his.”

Elgalad's troubled eyes gazed into his, but then he bent that lovely silver head and slid a knife from its sheath. Bainalph's fingers curled about the hilt.

Outside the cell he could see the gap in the wall, the fallen rubble.  
 _I might have been buried here._ He took a quick, shallow breath. The others were waiting, silent as the mist that seeped through the cracks. Bainalph could hear the settling grumble of the rock and muffled animal screams.  
“What did this?” he whispered. “I felt beauty and power, and the madman wailed in terror.”

“His name is Coldagnir.” It was Beleg who answered. “He has power, but no power can enter Carn Dûm. He destroyed a tower. It was a temple to the Dark, but he could not kill the Mouth. He...distracts.”

 _Power_ has _entered Carn Dûm,_ Bainalph thought. It smoked from their souls like candle-light in fog. He saw the half-orc then, the dagger at her throat held in a woman's steady hand. She stared back at him.

“Did she hurt thee?” Beleg asked, stepping to his side.

“No,” Bainalph said slowly. “She and the others delivered me here like a prisoner of war. I hope my blood was worth it, _uruk._ ”

It was a shadow that alerted them, a brief flash where there should have been nothing, then stillness. Some-one was there, beyond the torchlight, locked into quiet. Beleg spun, arrow on string, sighting into the gloom.

A voice said, “Vixen.”

Bainalph saw the half-orc's face change. Relief showed on it clear, before strain tightened it again.  
“Lion,” she said. “They want to free the women.”

“Come out,” Elladan ordered. “Very carefully.”

The man stepped over a tumble of stone, and Bainalph knew him from those shrouded dreams. He was tall, with a mane of tawny hair, but as he came into the light the pupils of his eyes contracted like a cat's, and his lips were drawn in warning over white incisors. He carried a sword.

“Throw it over here,” one of the Peredhil said. “ _Gently._ ”

He was like the female, thought Bainalph. There was orc blood there, but faint, leaving markers only in the eyes, the amber talons.

“You can aid us,” Elrohir said. “Or die here.”

The strange eyes moved to the woman. “Are you hurt?” he asked. The words were in perfect Westron, and there was no trace of any accent. Bainalph had heard of Saruman's experiments, and that the resulting Uruk-hai were savage and monstrous. This one was no monster, nor was the woman, and they were the more unsettling for that very reason.

“Not yet,” Vixen said, then, “Have you been down there?”

He shook his head.  
“I sent Ox up for food, and waited. I was going, and then...” He stared at the swirling dust. “This. I thought something else would fall.” His hands were held out at his sides, but he was thinking, Bainalph saw, his speech a layer of mist over the thoughts that ran like a river below.  
“You want to release the women?”

“The sorcerer is weak after Moondark, is he not?” Maeglin said.

“Yes, but his soldiers aren't.” He raised his brows to Vixen. “Where do you stand?”

“Anywhere that keeps me alive,” she snapped.

“For how long? If we betray him, we'll have to run; you know that.”

“If an army of Elves knows he's here, _I_ don't want to be.” Her eyes flickered. “I never touched an Elf save when we brought the white-haired one.” Her narrow jaw set. “I'm not dying for _him._ I will not have my soul drunk for _that._ ”

Stone shifted somewhere. The man frowned.  
“Have you come to kill him?”

“His death is not in our hands,” Maeglin answered, and the black blade glared red along its bitter edge. _Eög,_ Bainalph thought, _Eöl's iron. Not of this world._ And he glanced at Beleg, whose lovely face was remote.  
“We will do what we can do,” Maeglin continued. “She said you fathered children. What happened to them?”

“Did you tell them everything?” Lion demanded.

“All I could, yes. Help them or we die.”

“We'll die anyhow,” he responded calmly. “You know that. These are Elves. They won't spare us, will you?” He looked from one face to another, his own hard, body tensed. “We brought him.” He indicated Bainalph with a movement of his head. “I've fathered babes on some of the women. We're enemies, _aren't we?_ ”

And then he and all of them stilled.

Something was coming up the passage behind them, something that made no attempt to conceal its slow, seemingly laboured movements. A weight dragged across stone, there was a wet hog-like snuffling, a hissing unhuman growl as if whatever it was had caught their scent.  
The Uruk-hai ducked. Three arrows sliced the air where he had been standing, and thwacked into flesh. Beleg fitted another arrow on string and, as Lion's head rose, aimed it between his eyes. He did not move as the Peredhil slipped past him.

“Get up,” Maeglin said.

One of the twins enunciated like a prayer, “Holy Eru.”

It lay on its back, one arrow in its throat, the other two buried in its heart, and it was man and orc corrupted into an abomination. A second set of teeth erupted from one cheek, one arm was thick-muscled and taloned, the other thin. The legs were short, thick, pallid white, and an overlong member jutted between. There was no hair on its body; only the eyes were recognizable if one looked at the fair Uruk; they were the same, lion-coloured eyes.  
Vixen uttered a long clashing string of words.

“It's Sun,” Lion said slowly. “Lithil was his mother.”

“You can't be sure.” The dagger was still at Vixen's throat, Aredhel's hand steady despite her whisper of shock. But the half-orc seemed to have no thought of escape.

“I am sure,” he said. “The brand is Sun's.” There was a red scar on the thing's heavy arm. “He was...healthy when he was born, like all of them.” The words twisted away from him, and a growl thrummed low in his throat, threaded with grief. “Maybe there was a rock fall down there, and it escaped.”

The image of monsters broken free from their pens below was unsettling.

“Son?” Vixen repeated.

“Sun. Like the sun. He was fair. And there's no sun here.”

“So,” the Peredhel said, taking his eyes from the monstrous thing. “Take us to the women, then flee or die.”

Bainalph watched the wide shoulders tense.  
 _He knows we cannot not let him live._

“I'll take you,” Lion said, flatly. “And I hope you do have a bloody army.”

 _I wish we did,_ Bainalph thought, or that Elgalad's mysterious Vanimórë were free to act. _Or that the Greenwood was come._ He smiled to himself, derisive. _Thoughts bred in darkness and pain._  
“Go, then.” Maeglin gestured with his head.

Aredhel stepped lightly away from Vixen, who blinked and put a hand to her throat. She moved to the man's side. In silence, the Elves followed. Bainalph glanced back. A soft breeze sighed through the broken stone. He imagined he smelled the deep green scent of the forest, as if it bade him farewell from so far away.

The guardroom was empty. Coals had scattered from the fire and lay like fading rubies on the stone floor. Beyond was an empty chamber, damp and chill, and ahead, a barred door. Steps rose to into the tower above.

“ _He_ dwells up there.” Lion tilted his chin up. “But not tonight. The women lie yonder.”  
He lifted the bar. The door opened, torches lining the passage flickered at the inrush of air. At the far end was another closed door.

“No guards,” he told them. “Ox is usually here.”

“Go,” one of the Peredhil pointed his sword toward the further door. “Stand there.”

Beleg raised the great black bow.

“I'll help you,” Lion said. “Or I'll fight alone. That was my _son_ , that monster you killed.”

“Orcs have no familial feelings,” the twin stated coldly. “I have seen orc dens. The strong live, the weak are devoured.”

“I am _not an orc._ ” The yellow eyes flashed. Beleg's bowstring tightened.

“And you _allowed_ your children to be taken away and made into things to whom death is a _gift!_ ”

Lion's face went blank. After a moment his eyes dropped.

The cells were low and unlit they saw as they opened the doors, letting out the breath of sweat and waste, old food. Bainalph heard some-one draw a harsh breath.

“Do not be afraid.” Even as he pushed the door inward, he grimaced. What words of his would reach some-one used as these women had been? What had reached him?  
Elgalad.  
Kindness.  
Hope.  
The woman shrieked and leaped at him, a creature of nails and bared teeth, and there was no weight to her. Only her terror and rage lent her strength, and Bainalph caught her firmly, enclosing her in his arms so that she was pressed against him. Heat poured from her skin. She went still very suddenly, a small bundle of bones and raging heartbeat, as he whispered, “I was a prisoner, too.”

When he stepped back, releasing her, the woman stared at him, at his bruises, her bitten lips making small, shapeless sounds. She had a sweet, sad face. Very gently, he took her hand.

~~~  



	33. ~ For Blood, and Beauty and for Love ~

  
~ There were only twelve women. The strongest was Lithil, who stepped into the corridor after Aredhel, and whose eyes found Lion. Confusion shivered across her features before she visibly controlled herself. All of them were as bewildered, fearful, and there was no time to explain or reassure. They looked at the Elves as if they had walked out of a dream, and Bainalph did not know if they were less terrifying than orcs to people who had never seen them before. Even the Northmen whose people had known the wood-Elves for generations were not entirely at ease with them.

“Do any of you know of Carreg, Cell and Ness?” Aredhel asked, and the names did indeed evoke a reaction, though they were unfamiliar to Bainalph. A dozen pairs of eyes focused on her face.

“We know of them,” some-one said. “We thought them dead.”

“They are safe,” Aredhel assured them. “They escaped, and we will take thee to them. Follow us, and stay together if you can. Once we are outside the fortress head downhill. Always downhill. There will be fog, but we can find you.”

The women moved with as much alacrity as they could summon after their imprisonment, but hope was as potent as the _Miruvor_ that was given to them. There was little left, enough perhaps for one more mouthful apiece. Bainalph could still feel it in his veins and refused more. It was enough to give him the strength to do what he needed to do.

Beleg was last from the corridor, pulling the door closed even as Lion and Vixen ran toward it. The Peredhil lifted the bar into its brackets. Lithil swung around.

“They have orc-blood,” Aredhel answered her unspoken question, as if that was all the explanation needed. “We cannot trust them.”

“Does he? I used to pray it would be him who came.” The woman's mouth bent as if she were struggling not to cry. There came a murmur of agreement from some of the others. “The _others_ were...orcs.” She swallowed. “He brought me mead, warm skins, herbs...”

It had been the women who decided whether the half-orcs live or die, Bainalph knew, and without uttering a word. Lion had, by his own admission, fathered children on Lithil, probably on others, but none of them had looked on him with horror.

“They could be dead,” Fingolfin's daughter said. “And now, follow. If the female did not lie, we turn right until we come to a wall, and follow it to the postern gate.”

The Peredhil moved first; sharing a long private look, they crossed to the far door, melting out. Aredhel and Maeglin walked either side of the women, Elgalad, Bainalph and Beleg following behind. Bainalph longed for a bow, but a dagger was better for close work, and he wanted to be close. He could not look beyond revenge, not yet.

The mist brushed his skin like unwholesome memories. There was a tang to it like an open grave. That, and the half-light of the north was their greatest protection.

A man walked out of the fog, muttering half-frighted, half-angry curses. They gave him no time to feel surprise before he crumpled. Bainalph pulled his sword and knife from their sheaths. There was a whisper of fern and meadowsweet beside him.

 _How long wert thou here?_ Beleg's voice sounded in his mind.

 _The hawthorn was in bloom._ There had been gaiety and laughter under the stars, and if his own was feigned no matter. They had drunk cyser and elderberry wine, and Edenel had played his lap-harp.

_Midsummer has just passed. Thou art strong, but I will repay, for blood and for beauty._

_No,_ Bainalph essayed a smile.

Grey eyes saluted him.

The murk was suddenly alive with sounds. A torch glowed dusky-red off to their left, but illuminated nothing, and they slipped by it, hugging a wall of damp stone that rose above them, its base littered with rock. The going was slow, for the detritus could turn an unwary ankle, and the women wore nothing but soft shoes sewn of scraps of skin, but they went forward silent, resolute, afraid.

~~~

Zeva had risen as the fire-bolt that was Coldagnir struck the north, the cloak falling about his feet. Vanimórë crossed to his side, put an arm about him, felt the youth tremble.

_Nemrúshkeraz._

_Yes,_ the Balrog whispered like a lover in the night, riding on the ecstasy of his power, and a red-gold comet burned in terrible splendour across the sky, hurling itself into the mountains. The darkness of Angmar blushed like an unfurling rose, and slowly the washes of earth-shock traveled under their feet.

_Wait for them._

For they would return, and with the prisoners, Vanimórë had to believe it. It would be difficult, and they had known it would be. The women would be misused, unhealthy from their captivity, and some might be sick, but if they could reach the border they had a chance to live like the women of Dale and Esgaroth.

A laugh that sounded very like his father's mocked from the vaults of his mind.

_But they had to attempt it._

_Oh, love, come back to me._

Zeva looked up at him, and Vanimórë tightened his arm, drawing him closer.  
“They will come back,” he said. “And we will leave. Thou shalt be free. I can take thee back to the wide skies and green-gold grass and the shining river. To the Sagath. To thy people.”

The boy's eyes glimmered. He said haltingly, “I could not...return without the others, lord. I would be shamed.”

“They gave thee to the Mouth.”

“He ordered it.” Zeva dropped his head.

“And they had just lost a battle, were far from home and Sauron was their overlord. And still they should have refused.”

“And died, lord.”

Vanimórë sighed, “Yes.” And Malantur would have taken the boy anyhow. But still they should have fought for him.  
“Thou art shaman now, Zeva. Thy mind has been unlocked through death. And thou art a warrior too. No-one will force thee again.” He reached through the debilitating terror he felt for Elgalad, for all who fought in the mists of Carn Dûm, touched Zeva's cheek with his fingertips.  
“It is given to few to return from death.”

“It was so bright,” the boy whispered. “So warm. And I was not afraid, then.”

“And thou art afraid now.”  
Zeva said nothing.  
“As am I. I have always been afraid.”

“ _You,_ lord?” 

Smiling dryly at the incredulity in his tone, Vanimórë said, “Truly. Fear is an enemy. I have battled it all my life. Those who claim to feel no fear are liars or fools. Never be ashamed of fear, but act in spite of it. It is not you who are shamed, Zeva, but those who allowed thee to be taken by the Mouth. They will have come to hate themselves for that, I think. And if they do not, they are not worth a thought.”

~~~

“I thought til the end they would kill us.” Vixen leaned against the door. “And they might as well have when _he_ finds us here and the women gone.” She pushed at him irritably. “And you were no help!”

“What did you want me to do?” Lion asked acerbically. “Die bravely with three arrows through my throat?” He stared down the passage. “It was a mistake bringing that Elf here.”

She cast up her eyes. “ _Some-one_ believed a tale of immortality.”

“The sorcerer _has_ power. But not for us. For himself. But you're right. I brought you here, and Ox always follows.”

Vixen's eyes glinted. “You never _brought_ me anywhere,” she told him. “I go where I will. But I think it's time to leave.”

They looked at the door at the end of the passage. Lion thought of the monster that had once been a fair child.  
“He'll be weak. And he is down there.”

“And what else is down there?” Vixen wondered, then cursed. “Your pups, Lion...”

“I knew what he was doing,” he said roughly, slamming a hand against the wall. “The woman told me; Lithil. Part of the _process_ of immortality. I challenged him and he punished me. And I waited...” He swore and strode down the passage, only to halt as the door behind him began to open. Vixen hissed, crouched to spring, and then straightened as torchlight welled over Ox's huge form. He looked confused as the others pushed past him.

“The earth-shakes frighten the women,” he explained. “Where are they?”

“Gone,” Vixen said briefly. “And so are we going.”

Lion gripped the Uruk-hai's massive arm. “Elves came to release them,” he said. “If we see any, don't kill them. Help them. The others, the sorcerer's servants, kill.” he glanced at Vixen. “We have better bargaining powers if we help the Elves, or at least don't hinder. Where are they going?”

She pointed. “The postern gate.”

“Then come.”

~~~

A coughing bark sounded through the fog. Bainalph spun and stabbed out, his blade biting into something that squealed, and fell away. He had passed the dagger to Lithil, who held it with some expertness.

_She wants to kill as much as I._

In his mind the madman cursed and gibbered.

 _Craven._ His stolen blood opened an eye in the sorcerer's veins. He saw suddenly a withered creature squatting in its own fear-filth. Corruption glared from it, and malice, and a festering hate. Long teeth bared as it screamed, and behind the scream was a furnace roar of something far older and infinitely more powerful.  
Bainalph shuddered away from it, shocked, disoriented, and a heavy body hit him from behind. He smelled orc, heard heavy, huffing breaths, and then a liquid gurgle. The grasping weight fell away, and he saw Lithil's dagger weep dark tears. Rising, he nodded his thanks. And a horn sounded. The writhing murk came alive with shouts.

It was a strange, truncated battle. Shapes would blunder out of the fog, sometimes stumble by unknowing. The Elves let them go; it was more important to get the captives out than fight.  
Unexpectedly, they came to the angle of the wall, gathering there as the Peredhil pushed at the gate. The Uruk-hai woman had said it was not locked, only barred from the inside, and that a long stair clove down through the mountainside, difficult, but less dangerous than attempting the massive main gates. The ancient iron protested with a ragged groan, proclaiming their location clear as a battle trump.

“Elgalad, Aredhel, lead them!” one of the twins cried. There was a hiss, a crack as an arrow struck stone. A women flinched, her ankle turned and she stumbled. Bainalph, closest to her, helped her up, drew her on.  
“Can you walk?”

“Yes, lord.” Her teeth shut, and she leaned on him, but not heavily. Arrows snapped against the wall as archers fired at something they could not see, the deeper _thrum_ of Beleg's great longbow answering. Then steel bit steel.

Bainalph was through the gate, seeing rock-cut steps toppling into the mist. Aredhel stood to one side as Elgalad helped the last of the captives through, and Bainalph gazed at his face before turning and throwing himself back through the gap. Elgalad's stricken, “ _No!_ ” and Aredhel's cry were sliced in twain. A black buttress of mountain stood between them. The bar thumped into its brackets.

It had been in their eyes, the Peredhil, Beleg, Maeglin. They had not come here with the intention of leaving. Elgalad had, and so had Aredhel, but the others had known that they must form the rearguard if there was any hope of the women reaching safety.

_I would have done the same._

And then the world roared in as the Men of Angmar and the orcs closed. No more arrows came. This was blade to blade.

~~~

Aredhel beat at the unyielding door. She was crying in fury, turning on Elgalad with a snarl of white teeth as he caught her arm. His heart had fallen away into the fog. He could not breathe.

Aredhel said, “We have to – ” and turned back to the women. “ _Go on!_ They will give their lives for thee! _Go!_ ”

 _No,_ Elgalad pleaded. _No. Oh Eru, no._

The women began to move, cautious, silent but for their breathing, groping down the steps.

_Bainalph._

He sensed the smile like a brief spring wind through his mind.

_Sweet friend. If you ever see Thranduil again, tell him..._

Elgalad could hear the faint sounds of battle. He flattened his hands against the gate.

_...I wish him joy when the queen returns._

And so. He had guessed aright. He had wondered how Bainalph, with all his experience could so recklessly follow a band of orcs alone, unless he did not truly care what might happen to him.  
 _He saw there was no hope. If there ever was any hope._  
Under Bainalph's apple-blossom beauty and erotic gaiety lay hurt and love that went as deep as the roots of Alphgarth's ancient yews.

_My dear, my dear._

_I have loved. I have lived._

_No._ They could not die here in this place of unclean fog and foetid evil, not Bainalph, not the twins, who had fought the dark well-nigh all their lives, not Beleg who had loved so deeply and dearly, not Maeglin, somber beautiful, damned by all his people save one.

_No!_

~~~

They came through the gap like a stream running uphill, smooth, swift, noiseless. Indigo battle-markings followed and bracketed suave, fierce faces in lines like hawks wings, and black flowers and streaming leaves. Orders had been given long ago, and there was no need for speech. The leader listened for a heartbeat, and glanced into the open cell. He saw the chains, smelled the blood, seed spilled in violence, felt the lingering pain of the captive on his skin, in his blood. His eyes caught the torchlight in a flash like steel, and his full mouth went taut. He whirled and strode up the passage, warriors at his back.

~~~

Fingolfin's grip was tight as a vise, his profile clear and hard, stamped with unnameable emotions. They had risen, not realizing it. Maglor, whom had cared for the Peredhils' father, closed his eyes in grief, brows drawn hard. Fëanor's soul raged against impotence. All they could do was witness, watch as the Elves fought with the barred gate at their backs, as orcs and men charged, and died. It was beautiful, it was heartbreaking, and Fëanor had seen too many deaths in the Void. His blood beat and sparked, drew him down into the the power that breathed through it, touched another soul bound to his.

_Coldagnir._

He saw, in his mind, the coruscation of fire as the Balrog turned burning-metal eyes toward him.

_My Lord._

_Break the skies,_ Fëanor commanded.

_Yes._

~~~

High above Carn Dûm crimson flame ripped the clouds apart, sending them reeling to collide, piling higher and higher so that the edge of the sun caught the towering roofs and blanched them shining white. Lightning raced to the twelve winds. Elves, orcs and Men flinched as the air bellowed protest, and the mist drove into the walls as if slapped. Elgalad and Aredhel pressed themselves flat against the postern gate, and the women hunched down, clinging to the steps. 

The orcs cowered, blinded. They more than Men could feel the power in the conflagration, the light stabbing deep behind their eyes. In his sanctuary Malantur shrieked, eyes bulging wide as something swelled inside him, an immense presence pushing at the rusted doors of his soul.

“ _Nemrúshkeraz.”_ The voice was not his own; fire spilling over white-hot iron. The guards flinched. At the first earth tremor they had gone to attend him as was his command after the destruction of the temple tower. Noe they watched as his eyes shone red, became pits of flame. He screamed in agony, froth bubbling at his lips, the muscles of his face contorting. He spat like clots of raw meat: “Bring me the Elf!”

The man Lion had named Horseskull ran from the chamber. No thoughts of disobeying ever nudged his mind. However feeble the Mouth might seem now, he would regain his strength, as he had always done after each Moondark. He was no man to cross, and he understood the needs of those who served him. Had he not been the Great Lord's favoured? The thought shrank the man's testicles with awe and fear. Had he not mounted the Slave, that dark and deadly beauty? Horseskull had never been so fortunate. He had never seen Sauron, had seen Vanimórë only once, but now he knew the ecstasy of taking an Elf. His cock swelled, and he groaned as he climbed the stairs. The way was not far, for the Mouth kept his needs close, the babes, the Elf – through the door to the women's cells, and...  
They were gone, the doors flung wide. He cursed as he heard the sounds of fighting from outside. The Elf's cell was empty too, the chains cut. Snarling, battle and lust climbing into his throat, he plunged into the ward.

The fog had dispersed. He could see bodies lying, orcs staggering and crawling, a knot of men at the far wall. He thought he glimpsed, through the melee, a flit of creamy hair. The Isenguard Uruk-hai were to his left, advancing on the fight, and he roared: “Kill them! The Master wants his Elf!”

“They're all Elves, you stupid piece of shit.” Vixen did not look back. Ox swept aside an orc with his sword, cutting it almost in half. Lion grabbed one of the soldiers by the neck and Horseskull imagined he could hear the crack of bone. He gaped, gathered saliva and choked on it.  
“To me, Angmar, to me!” 

A group of Rhûnain tribesmen spilled out of another doorway, sabers in hand. One of them threw him a brief, summing look. Spitting curses, Horseskull tripped over the dead and dying, turned at the sound of heavy boots. The men of the Durthang garrison had armed themselves. They were absolutely loyal, wore heavy blackened mail and helms. He waved them on, relieved.  
“Bring the Elf,” he yelled. “ _Quickly!_ ”

There was sudden flurry, and two men fell back, one with the stump of an arm spraying blood, and the milk-haired Elf leaped over them. He looked like a wild-cat, his bare breast striped with blood, eyes a blaze of green-gold, and he stalked toward Horseskull like a predator. The man croaked at the tribesmen. Their leader spat comprehensively, folded his saber over his chest.

“You took my blood.” The Elf came closer. “You took my body, that I give to none save my lovers. You _dared_ to touch me.”

Horsekull raised his sword, and his palms slipped, sweaty on the hilt. He backed, tripping up the tower steps, and rolled aside. One of the Durthang men ran at him, and the Elf spun, beat the sword aside and launched a flying high kick to the soldier's head. His neck snapped. It had taken a heartbeat, no more. Horseskull struggled to his feet, then with a twisted grimace he laughed, and attacked. The Elf turned his blade effortlessly, and a streak of fire ran down the man's cheek.  
“Bitch,” he growled. “Pretty bitch.” He swiped away blood. “I'll rape you again, bitch, before the master has you. I'll stick my sword up your arse and rip it open.” His voice climbed through thick mucus to an orgiastic wail.

The Elf's terrible eyes were not even looking at him. They stared beyond, wide, almost golden in the growing light.

Some-one said distinctly, “For blood and for beauty, Bainalph, this one is mine.” ~

 

~~~  



	34. ~ Shadows Beyond the Shadow ~

  
~ _Nemrúshkeraz._

That hissing spill of molten rock was more loathed than Melkor's voice, for at the beginning the Dark God was somehow held sacrosanct from any emotion save awe. Not so Gothmog who, even in the Timeless Halls, had loomed over Nemrúshkeraz with an air of ownership that he had to interpret as love, for he had no experience then of lust, no form to feel it, and did not yet recognize jealousy, covetousness or hate.  
  
 _Didst thou think to escape me, little one? We are bound. Forever unto forever, brother._  
  
Dread sent Coldagnir plunging to the earth, coming to himself beside the cold, shallow river that marked the border of Angmar.  
  
 _No!_ Never! _Never again!_  
  
He stared into the north, where clouds wrestled and lightning ran, and the sky broke again and again in thunder. The threat subsided like a fire coiling down to embers. But for a moment, it had been there.  
  
 _Gothmog._  
  
He felt Vanimórë's imperative question and took a breath that was still half-flame.  
 _He said my name. My true name. It will be Gothmog, not Melkor._  
Wrapping his arms about himself he shivered, fell to his knees. It seemed as if Vanimórë reached across the leagues and laid a hand on his shoulder, gripped. Coldagnir leaned into the invisible presence.  
  
 _Malantur would have to be far stronger than he is or ever will be to host Gothmog,_ Vanimórë told him. _He may be using Malantur as a conduit, but if Gothmog tried to truly possess the Mouth's body, his chosen vessel would be naught but char._  
  
 _He would not care for that,_ Coldagnir replied.  
  
Vanimórë was silent for a moment, and it was a moment too long, but he said at last, and with a patience and reassurance that the Balrog loved him for, _It is not so easy for him to return, I believe, or he would have done so long ago. In the beginning it was choice, and he came from the Timeless Halls, as didst thou. Now he is in the Void. He has to find a housing, or all he could do is drift as spirit, terrorize undoubtedly, and do harm, but Glorfindel and I could find him and drain his powers until he is nothing. Gothmog was never a fool; he would know this, and so will Melkor._  
  
 _Would_ Melkor _need a housing? And he did not care what he destroyed in the end._  
  
 _Were it easy for him to come back, he would never have been cast into the Void._  
  
 _Is that why this Man is using the Elf's blood?_  
It was Fëanor. _Perhaps this is what he intended since Sauron's fall. Not simply to extend his own immortality, but to be more than immortal?_  
  
 _What Elf?_ Vanimórë demanded, sharp as a dagger.  
  
Fëanor sounded like the heart of a star, not human at all.  
 _Dana allows us to see into Carn Dûm. To witness, not to act. There was an Elf imprisoned, of Legolas' folk. Elgalad found him._  
  
Vanimórë's curse was less words than an explosion of dark wrath that singed Coldagnir with the edge of power.  
  
 _He was tortured,_ Fëanor said. _They raped him and took his blood for the Mouth, but he is alive. For now. His people have come, the Great Wood, and their king. Thou shouldst know that they freed the women. They are outside, through a postern gate. Aredhel and Elgalad are with them._  
  
Vanimórë said flatly, _They closed it behind them._  
  
 _Yes,_ Fëanor agreed, all white fury. For Fingolfin, Coldagnir knew, because if Maeglin died it would devastate Aredhel, and Fingolfin loved his daughter.  
 _But I think they may win free. Coldagnir's fire will make the orcs blind for some time, and there are others there, Men who are fighting against Angmar._  
  
He was gone with that, though Coldagnir, linked by the Blood-kiss could still feel him as he could feel the heart of creation around which every star, every world, revolved.  
  
 _Coldagnir, thou must prepare for them. I will bring Zeva._ Vanimórë's voice had gone flat as hammered steel, but Coldagnir knew what lay behind it. _Get meat, find herbs and bring wood. Make a fire. They will need to rest._  
If they made it this far.  
  
 _Didst thou not know of the other Elves?_ Coldagnir's hands clenched and unclenched.  
  
 _My attention was otherwhere, and it is not possible for me to live knowing_ everything. Vanimórë sounded enraged, mortified.  
  
Coldagnir said, _Yes._ He had not been omniscient, but as Ainu, before his fall, the absorption (for he could call it nothing else) of all things that in form were received through the senses was immeasurably greater. One simply _knew._ To adapt to the limitations imposed by form had been a peculiar challenge, though a lesser part of his horror. Though never truly human, he had felt as if shut out from the greater part of reality. But there were compensations; he thought that was only just, perhaps a gift to the One of those who were housed in flesh.  
  
 _Elven blood,_ Vanimórë spat disgustedly. _I should have guessed._  
  
 _Why?_ Coldagnir asked. He saw the other's face in his mind, a beautiful mask over raw, tumultuous fear that had nowhere to go, his expression restrained for Zeva's sake.  
  
 _Because Sauron gave him his unnatural life with_ my _blood, in the beginning._  
  
Blood, Coldagnir thought, coming to his feet. The oldest magic. Melkor's blood unto Elves and later Mortals to twist, to poison, to skew. He had seen it in Utumno, and to Melkor it was simply a task he desired to accomplish successfully, not wrong, not horrific. Vanimórë said, _Yes,_ then, _Both Fëanor and I have sworn Gothmog will not have thee._  
  
And Coldagnir had to believe them, although he knew in his soul that he would face Gothmog again.  
  
He pushed his hair out of his eyes with a convulsive shudder, breathed deeply and went to hunt.  
  


~~~

The Elf that spoke was part of the clashing skies, the sudden wind that blasted across the ward carrying a scatter of rain hard as pebbles. It seemed that any moment he might become the raging torrents of air, the rain and thunder, something unhuman. Horseskull reeled back, mouth gone slack, gaping at a warrior in green and brown, strips of dyed doeskin sewn in patterns like flame so that one seemed to melt into the other in the uncertain light. There was nothing uncertain or unreal about the knives, short swords with edges that answered lightning with light. The Elf's face was clasped by black markings, hawk's wings following the line of his brows, drawing into a point like a predator's beak between them, and stylized talons curved from temple to jaw. His hair was old gold, like fine metal aged by centuries to a dark, rich polish, and his eyes held a light that owed nothing to the storm. They promised death.  
Others ranked around him, all dressed as he, with fierce patterned faces. Some held bows, the others the same long knives.

Horseskull did not understand his words, nor those the white-haired Elf spoke. He was still backing, mouth opening and shutting, realizing that his men were not coming to his aid, but fully engaged in another battle.  
But the Elves were not even looking at him. They began to move, fluid as water, toward the postern, others leaped catlike up the walls. Horseskull edged away.

“You _dare?_ ” Bainalph demanded of Thranduil. “ _Now?_ ”

He span away, stalking after Horseskull, who raised his sword. Perhaps an Elf one has raped is not so terrifying as a warrior king in his vengeance, Bainalph thought, his mind white with outrage at both rapist and king. His sword flicked, opening a hair-thin gash in Horseskull's leather tunic, who flinched and clutched a hand to his stomach. It came away red.

“Fight me, _filth_ ,” Bainalph hissed. “Did you not make me a promise?”

With a sudden snarl Horseskull surged forward. Bainalph smashed the descending blow aside and opened another slender, weeping cut on his thigh.  
The man was a seasoned warrior. He would have had to be, to survive in Sauron's army, Bainalph guessed, but he had let the fear in. In battle, one could not afford to do that. He could smell it in the man's sweat, the sudden sharp rush of urine. Horseskull made a sound in his throat, and hacked viciously. Bainalph whirled away and back, circling him like a dancer, delivering cut after cut. It was not a fight, it was a mockery.

Horseskull fell to one knee, panting, a low guttural stream of words running from his mouth. He bared his big yellow teeth, using his sword as a prop to rise again.  
“Elf-whore,” he rasped. “I will have your blood. I tasted it. It is in me now, whore.”

Bainalph did not hear the battle-thunder around him, saw nothing. He had moved into the warrior's world of action and reaction, when one is _more,_ when one is the weapon itself. And he was driven by the _Miruvor_ and by bitterest hate. It could not last, for there were wounds unhealed within him and without, but he would endure long enough, and never fail before Thranduil. The king's arrogance was oil on the fire of his rage, and perhaps he should be grateful that it lent him added strength, but how dare he come now, how dare he imagine he had the right of vengeance? It was his duty as ruler of the Greenwood to protect his people, and so he had come, and somewhere deep within, Bainalph was astonished, but it was still not for Thranduil to kill this man.

“ _Whore!_ ” Horseskull bellowed. He shambled forward, leg dragging, and it seemed as if another voice was twinned with his, dark as slime on rotting wood. “Blood.”

“Blood,” Bainalph said through his teeth, and ducked under the massive swing, turning his bruised wrist and driving his blade up...up through the man's groin, through the testes and the shaft, hard with thick blood.  
“ _Agar a baneth._ ”

The wide mouth opened, a scream strangled on itself. Reflexively the man grabbed at his crotch, at the spreading wet bloom. He fell to his knees, rolling in agony, and the screams came then, drowned in thunder.

Bainalph stepped back, permitting the world in. Some-one said his name, and he turned to see Edenel, Thirvain, the others he had left that night when the orcs attacked. They came into his arms. The fighting had ceased. Bodies lay quiet or twitching their last. A group of slim men with dark uptilted eyes were gathered, long knives stained red, but their harvest was Angmar soldiers. Not far off stood the three Uruk-hai who had bought him here, and the bodies about them were of Angmar too. The orcs that had not fled blindly were dead. All three groups eyed one another warily. Glancing up, Bainalph saw the wood-Elves on the walls, arrows nocked, moving toward the postern gate. Gathering himself, head high and concealing his weariness, Bainalph began to walk toward it.

_Bainalph!_ It was Elgalad, insistent as a man knocking on a closed door, loving and terrified.

_It is well,_ he said. _And the Greenwood is come._  
Had he not wished for it?

_I know._ Elgalad's voice was saturated with relief. _I feel them now._

When a hand came down on his shoulder, he turned, glared up into Thranduil's eyes. The slender, calloused fingers were warm, gentle on his bare wet skin. His eyes were blue mystery.  
“I heard what you said, what _that_ said.” His voice was strange and strained.

“I will live,” Bainalph answered coolly. He realized he was shaking. “What is rape to some-one like me, Sire? Surely I must have enjoyed it?”

Thranduil's head went back as if he had been slapped.

“Forgive me,” Bainalph added mordantly, through a brittle smile. “But I have never been able to oblige you by dying thus far, and I do not intend to die of this.”

The king's hand tightened for a moment, then loosed. His eyes had widened, his jaw clenched. He took a breath.  
“Who rules here?” he asked furiously.

“He was known as the Mouth of Sauron.”  
Some-one was walking toward them from the gate, picking his way sinuously through the dead. Thranduil's face froze, then flushed in utter wonder. Perhaps he had ignored the _Golodhrim_ , but he could not ignore his grandsire, and there on the damp cobbles, he went down on one knee. Beleg raised him, but it was Bainalph he kissed, tenderly, on the mouth.

“Thou shouldst take better care of thy lovers, Thranduil,” he said mildly, and with something underneath it like the wood of his black bow, supple, but with a killing power.  
And the king flushed, looking from Beleg to Bainalph, who shook his head, briefly, knowing how Thranduil would be incensed if he thought that he had been referred to in that wise.  
 _And I said naught. Did Elgalad?_

“We cannot slay the Mouth,” Beleg added. “That destiny belongs to another. We came here for the women, the prisoners. They were captured for breeding. Come.”

Thranduil opened his mouth, frowning, but with a glance at Bainalph, at the dead, the sound of blind, panicking orcs further away and other, more disturbing sounds, he nodded, raised his hand to his warriors. Beleg moved to Bainalph's side almost protectively. The prince smiled as all the bruises of body and soul turned on him aggressively, and forced himself not to stumble.

One of the twins turned toward them.  
“I am glad you came, Thranduil,” he said briefly and swept the ward with grey eyes that had seen many battles.

“Elronion,” Thranduil returned, with equal brevity. “This is not all of them. Some fled within.” He tilted his head back toward the towering fortress. It seemed to brood, as if nameless malice crawled in its depths, but was was unwilling to come out into the stormy light.

Elladan, or was it Elrohir? lifted his shoulders, liberating a sword from the lax grasp of a dead man. “There is no time to hunt them out. The women, with Elgalad and Aredhel are beyond the gate. The prisoners are willing, but weak, and are our first concern. And I do not believe any-one will follow us now.” His teeth showed white, but no smile shaped his mouth.

“The sorcerer will keep them back now. He can't risk losing all his men.”

Maeglin, white face stippled with blood, moved toward the tall, fair Uruk who had spoken.  
“What is your stake in this?” he asked coldly. “Do you not comprehend we cannot let you follow us?”

“Did I say we would?” Lion threw back. He was holding a sword and wickedly long knife, both red to the hilts. “Why do not _you_ comprehend?” His eyes swung to Bainalph, who met them stonily. “I should not have brought the Elf here. I sought immortality.”

Thranduil took two step forward. Bainalph reached out, caught his arm, and said, looking only at the Uruk, “Did you receive it?”

“It was lies,” Lion admitted. “He needs it for himself. I am ashamed of my part in it. I saw the Dark in him, and that thing.”

Horseskull's shrieks had subsided through lack of breath, though he still writhed back and forth, terrible sounds crawling up in his throat. Bainalph felt no pity, no inclination to mercy. He looked back at Maeglin, who held the Uruk's sun-yellow stare. Colour flared along the _Golodh's_ high cheeks. Bainalph recollected he had been a traitor, made a bargain with Morgoth

“We want freedom,” Vixen said. “There's none here. But no offense, I don't want to live anywhere near Elves.” Her expression was a meld of pugnaciousness and bone-deep fear.

“You will not, and the north belongs to Elessar,” one of the Peredhil said icily. “He has reclaimed his throne. There is no place where you can settle in Arnor.”

“The north is a lot of land for one man to claim,” bit Vixen. “But there are other lands, wild places, where the hunting is good, and we can live free.”

“We'll fight with you until we are out of Angmar, if need be,” Lion said. “Though I think there will be no pursuit. The sorcerer will regain his strength and then we will be punished. Damn him. I escaped from slavery. I'll not suffer that.”

All eyes were on _him_ , Bainalph realized. With the women beyond the gates, it was his choice whether the Uruk-hai lived or died. He could not look at them without a prickling unease, though they were not monstrous to the eye, not even the huge one, thewed like an oak, but with a man's eyes, brown, oddly gentle.

“They did not misuse me,” he said, because it was true, and there was little time. He turned away.

“Bainalph,” Thranduil said insistently.

“ _No._ ” He thought he might scream, strike the king across the face.  
 _How dared he?_

The postern gate swung back, and a moment later, he was in Elgalad's arms, who was drawing him on, down, as the angry elements cracked and sent funnels of wind chasing down the steps.

The way seemed long, but the mountains of Angmar were not high. Elladan and Elrohir took rearguard, both to watch the Uruk-hai and for any sign they were being followed. When a sudden vicious burst of rain caused one of the women to slip, almost fall down a steep crumbling pitch, the Elves picked them up and carried them. They did not protest; were almost beyond fear, exhausted. Bainalph dug deep into his reserves, caught in the silent rush downward through mist that scattered and swirled back, blasts of wind that sent it reeling, and showed bare black rock, the flat green land that stretched beyond, and the taiga forests of larch and spruce.

The stairs dwindled into stone, less steep but more rough. The Elves ran on swift as hill-foxes, until rock melted into the thin soil of the tundra, and as if on an unseen signal they stopped, looking back. The clouds were streaming back over Carn Dûm, but for heartbeats they could see it louring above, so old it seemed as if the mountains might have spat an age-old malice into the shape of clinging walls and sharp towers. Then the storm swallowed it, a black curtain trailing the skirts of the hills.

A score of bowstrings bent at the sight of running men reaching the lower courses of the steps.

“Wait,” Thranduil ordered. “They were fighting the others.”

“They are Zeva's p-people,” Elgalad said. “He was the M-Mouth's plaything.  
They c-came unwilling.”

“The Mouth seems not to instil much loyalty,” the king remarked.

Vixen cursed derisively. “The Men of Mordor will fight for him, and the orcs. This lot are escaping.”

“He told me they were cursed.” Lion watched them come, more slowly now, wary. “Their leader.” He pointed to one of the men, then looked around sharply. “Zeva? The boy?” he asked. “He died when the tower fell, they said, he and Horseskull's fellow.”

“He did not die,” Beleg refuted. “He is with Vanimórë. Coldagnir brought him out of the fire.”

“And who...? I suppose explanations must wait,” Thranduil murmured as the Easterners approached.

“Halt!” one of the Peredhil called. “Do any of you speak Common?”

The Men stopped, confronted by a wall of arrowheads.  
“I do,” the leader replied. He was an older man but still moved lightly, eyes keen between deep creases; a man who looked into far distances on the Rhûnan plains. “I am Imak.”

“And where do you go?”

“Back to our homes though it takes a lifetime. Or we will fight now, and die here rather than return to _that._ ”

The twins faces, Aredhel's, her son's, Beleg and even Elgalad's were hard.  
“You gave your own kin to that monster. ”

The man flinched at that. All of them looked bewildered, frightened, but resolve stiffened them. They would indeed die, thought Bainalph, rather than return to Carn Dûm.

Imak frowned, stared at them, then down at the ground.  
“Yes. And we will pay for that.”

“ _Why?_ ” Elgalad stepped forward. “He was thine own blood!”

The man shifted his feet.  
“The sorcerer spoke into our minds, he threatened us with torment. I saw such things as turned my bowels to liquid.” The dark eyes came up. “He was the Great Lord's voice. His mouth. He has power. I should have killed the boy first. After, it was too late.”

“Zeva l-lives,” Elgalad told him, and his voice shook. “And I th-think thou shouldst see him.”

~~~

They moved on, a cautious gathering, the wood-Elves forming a loose and watchful cordon about them, even the Uruk-hai within their ambit, though the latter did nothing to warrant concern. The storm had swept the mists away. It still echoed in the shrouded mountains behind them.

“What is happening here?” Thranduil asked, once they had covered leagues and seen no sign of pursuit.  
The Peredhil halted, scanned the north. Elladan said, “Yes. It is time to rest awhile, and to speak.”

There was no wood to burn, and they had brought no fagots, but there was the last of the _Miruvor_ for the women, and the Elves unrolled their cloaks, settling them over thin shoulders, bringing out cold meat and dried fruit. The wood-Elves had brought small flasks of Emberwine which they passed around. There was nothing else. They had left supplies at the spot where they had met with Vixen, and traveled light and swift toward Carn Dûm.

It proved impossible to examine the women closely. They had been given no choice but to trust their rescuers, but that did not mean they were at ease with the Elves. In the end, Aredhel with Lithil and Thirvain the huntress went to each of them, talking in low voices. Lithil was no healer, she said, but her mother had been a birth-woman, and she knew what questions to ask the victims of rape and pregnancy. The others turned away to give them an illusion of privacy. Edenel, who sang sweeter than a nightingale, fought like a Fell-wolf, and yet had a healing touch, ran his hands over Bainalph gently as if to reassure himself. He said, at last: “Thy body is healing, my dear prince.”

“I know.” 

“We lost your trail.” The other warriors of Alphgarth gathered around their prince. “Even Thirvain could not find it.”

“I am glad you did not,” Bainalph said. “Truly. They took me under the mountains, only an orc or Dwarf could have followed.”

Edenel shook his head. “We should have tried.”

“No,” Bainalph said firmly, to all of them. “I should not have followed the orcs alone. I should have set more guards. I should not have assumed there was no danger. The fault is mine. You came.” He gripped Edenel's wrist.  
“That sorcerer, the Mouth of Sauron. I could feel my blood in within him.” The bard hissed, blinked. “Had there been more of us, he might have been stronger.”

It did not comfort them, he saw, but he smiled, passed from one to the other, kissed them and praised them, and told them to eat. He was simply glad no more had died, that they had left no bodies in Carn Dûm.

Not all of his warriors had come to Angmar, Thranduil told them, as they made cold camp; it was to be a raid, not a war, as he did not know what forces Carn Dûm could muster. He had come to bring out Bainalph (and here his eyes rested on the prince.) The rest of his forces lay east of the Hithaeglir. As he spoke, he summoned a dappled white gyrfalcon down to his wrist, and sent it flying toward the mountains.

“As with us,” Elladan replied. And he told them, sitting under the sun, in the wind that blew everlastingly from the east, of Carreg and Cell and their child who looked like Túrin Turambar. He spoke of Vanimórë's vengeance against the orcs after the war, which had sent them fleeing west to come, eventually, to Angmar. He told of Coldagnir, what he was, of the temple tower in the fortress, and the possibility that the Mouth might be used as a conduit for some dark spirit far more deadly, at which some-one exclaimed, “Impossible.”  
Bainalph thought so too, but that was not the lie in this tale. He noted that all of the Imladris party glanced often at Beleg, who was restringing his bow with his own braided hair, his face like white enamel, and as expressionless.

“This is well-nigh incomprehensible,” Thranduil stated. “Why would a child who _looks_ like Túrin be given this task?” But he asked respectfully, giving Beleg the honour he both demanded and deserved.

“Túrin died long ago.” Beleg did not look up. “But the name is still powerful, and there is a symmetry in all this. And the child will look his image when he is older.”

Elgalad glanced up then, met Bainalph's eyes, and a knot swelled in his throat, broke with a silent explosion like tears in the night. He came to his feet, excusing himself, and walked away. Elgalad was at his side a moment later.

_What is the truth?_ he asked, as they came to a shallow pool, blue under the sun, and never had it seemed so bright. It kissed his face as he raised it, eyes closed. Thranduil's voice had faded for a moment, but now he was speaking again, still quietly.

_You are lying to Beleg of all people. Does he not deserve more? No-one deserves to be lied to._  
Anger traced his face with slender fingers, scalding in the cool wind.  
 _But Thranduil never lied to me. He always made his feelings wholly clear. So why am I so_ angry?

Elgalad said his name. He turned his head away, not wanting even Elgalad to see his tears.  
 _I was preparing to die there, in battle, not of grief, not of rape, but my soul was ready._  
Was that why he felt he was breaking, now?

_Bainalph, do not._ He felt gentle fingers stroke his hair, and caught the sob in his chest. _I_ know.

_No._ He made himself smile, cupping Elgalad's cheek. _And neither should you know, sweet friend. Who could not love you? Now, tell me._

_Túrin is reborn._ Elgalad's eyes held his somberly, his hand still in Bainalph's hair. _Vanimórë and Glorfindel and Maeglin were at Tol Morwen. Túrin's soul was bound there for thousands of years. They took Gurthang, that was Anglachel, from the tomb, and at that moment, his soul was born into a child's body._

Anglachel. Yes. It could be nothing else that would cleave iron like wood.  
 _How can that happen? Men are not reborn. And every-one knows save Beleg. He is the one person who_ should _know._

It was legend, his love for Túrin, but Bainalph's parents had known Beleg, and young Túrin, before he left Doriath, and they spoke of it as fact. Even had they not, one look at his face was enough. He had loved. He still loved.

_So do I think,_ Elgalad agreed. _But Túrin is to meet the Mouth, and if Beleg knew whom he was, he might do anything to prevent an old curse repeating itself, and that, they believe, could alter what is to come._

Bainalph shook his head.  
 _Morgoth's curse lives after all these Ages?_

_Túrin made an oath when he was dying. My Lord...he and Glorfindel were permitted to see into the past. He said –_ Elgalad stopped, his lovely features transparent. _'It is not ended.' And at the last, he cried Beleg's name. He bound himself. And they say that he will remember as he grows._

It was too much, too terrible. Bainalph was struck again with the sense that he was entangled in something much older, much darker and far greater than he himself.

“I am fortunate that you came,” he murmured.

“Thranduil came also,” Elgalad said as quietly.

“He had to, if he knew where I was.” He could not repress the bile, but pitched his voice barely above a whisper, and stiffened when Beleg spoke behind him, and as softly.  
“Wilt thou walk with me a while, Bainalph Cualphion?”

He looked around. The Peredhil were still speaking to Thranduil, who chanced to turn his head at the same moment. Bainalph felt his face tighten.  
“It would be an honour,” he said.

Elgalad kissed him sweetly, and walked back to the group. Bainalph lifted his face. Beleg was taller than he, Thranduil's height, and let him see what he would.

“I knew thy parents.” Beleg took him by the shoulders. “Did they ever speak of me?”

Bainalph felt amusement prick through his pain. There was comfort in the firm, kind grip, and a strange familiarity.  
 _How not? He is Thranduil's grandsire._  
“My Lord, I was raised on tales of you, and of Doriath.”

“And thine own family?”

It was all there, very suddenly.  
“My brother?” he questioned. “The one who died?”

His parents had loved him, he knew, but they were a man and woman who were for one another before anything, even children. He had sometimes wondered if the loss of their firstborn had brought them so fiercely together that not even his birth, long after, could touch their closeness.  
“Alphael.” He said the name under his breath.

“Thou art so like him,” Beleg said. “Thine eyes, thy smile, thy face.”

Not only was he confronted by a child who was growing into the image of Túrin, but now was forced to see another living memory.  
“I am sorry,” Bainalph did not know what else to say.

“ _Sorry?_ ” Beleg shook his head. “He was valiant and full of gaiety, as art thou.”

Bainalph felt neither. “I wish I had known him.” And, silently, _What did Elgalad tell thee?_

_Come._

They paced slowly about the marge of the pool. Just to feel the earth again strengthened Bainalph, though he could sense that not far below the surface it was frozen. But it lived and was green and it was summer, not the dank eternal winter of Carn Dûm.

_Elgalad loves thee,_ Beleg said. _I told him I had known thy brother, and he told me of thyself, and Thranduil._

_To couch it thus makes it seem as if there were anything between us._

_Thinks't thou there is not?_

_Not since I made the mistake of thinking there was._ He gazed south toward the distant woods, thinking of Alphgarth. In the blackest moments he had thought never to see it again, wondered who would rule it after he never returned. The king would have appointed some-one wise and strong, he knew, and his people would not have suffered. But he was not dead, and he could return and live as he always had. He would have to, or dwindle with the horror of his captivity.  
 _No._  
Did Thranduil hope he would?  
 _I will not give him that satisfaction._

But was any-one the same after rape and torture, he wondered, and thought of Sauron's son, whose life had been shaped by both, Elgalad had said. Perhaps he would meet Vanimórë, to look in his eyes and read the secret of such durability.

_If there was naught, then why did he have thee?_ Beleg asked reasonably. _How old wert thou?_

_Not old enough to be deterred by his faithfulness to the queen._ He grimaced at his young self. _All I knew was that I wanted him, I would have died for him had he asked it, and I thought..._

He had spent all his life trying to find a reason for his actions that autumn night, and there was only one: Love. He was in love, and made himself believe that he saw something in the king that both reciprocated and beckoned; not love perhaps, but liking and desire. It was with some relief that he realized his shiver then was not of revulsion, that he could remember with pleasure. If the delight of sex was stripped from him, if he allowed himself to become a victim, Angmar would triumph.  
 _Little chance of that,_ he thought with a grim silent laugh. Seeing Thranduil in Carn Dûm had struck at the roots of his heart like an axe, affecting him as even rape could not.

_I did not think that it would matter to him,_ he said to Beleg. _I thought we could be lovers, after. He took lovers after the queen died, and enacted the ancient rites._  
 _I never presented myself._ He had been tempted, but even on those nights no man or woman lay with those they despised.

_He was old enough to refuse thee, if he had wanted to._ Beleg sounded curt. _Elgalad said thou wert not welcome at court unless a council was called._

_That is true enough. He held a feast to announce the queen was returning. Of course I was invited to that._

_Come,_ Beleg said. _Come and eat, and rest._ His arms came about Bainalph, gently, and with great strength. _I need to speak with my grandson._

_No. Not on my account. I fight my own battles._

Beleg drew back to look in his eyes.  
 _Yes, thou hast fought thine own battles, but he has done thee a great wrong._ He laid the palm of one hand on Bainalph's breast. _Thou hast hidden it well, as thy brother would have, under beauty, lovers, laughter. So well that I am unsure if my grandson even knows how deeply he wounded thee. And all because, I think, thou didst show him his truest self, and it called into question his honour, the very life he had always lived._

_And still, I would ask you to say naught. I know him better than you, my Lord Beleg._  
He stared across the camp. Thranduil had risen, was conferring with Gwaewind. The king looked up –  
– And it happened again as it always had. Bainalph's heart turned over, and dropped away inside him. Still now, after so long, and with the shadow of Carn Dûm flung long and black between them, nothing was changed.  
 _Did I truly think it would?_ he thought wearily. ~ 

~~~

~~~

  


~~~


	35. ~ The King's Power ~

**~ The King's Power ~**

~ Fingolfin came back to the world as Dana released her hold on him. He found a cup pressed into his hands and took it, said, “My thanks,” and drank. Fëanor's hand rubbed gently up and down his back, gentle as a father. Maglor stared at him from those eyes that had seen so much, and found a smile somewhere.  
  
“There will be no pursuit,” Fëanor murmured. “Or not yet. Thou didst hear?”  
  
“I heard, and I think they are correct, though I would not wager on it. And it does not end there.”  
  
“No,” Fëanor agreed. “But for now thy daughter is safe.”  
  
“As is her son.” Fingolfin stared into the wine, then tossed off the cup and set it aside. “I saw him in the Void, but...”  
  
“Aredhel loves him,” his half-brother supplied ruefully. “More than brother or father.”  
  
“Or Gondolin,” Fingolfin murmured, seeing the white city again, falling in fire and smoke. “More than thousands of deaths.”  
  
Fëanor's smile reached his eyes, accepting everything, questioning nothing.  
“It is the way we love.” He slid one arm about Fingolfin, the other about Maglor, and drew them together. “And who knows? perhaps thy grandson will make requital for his acts and return to us, because that alone will satisfy Aredhel.”  
  
“I know,” Fingolfin said. “And I thank thee, both of thee, for being with me.”  
  
It had been too like the Void, where he was helpless. Now his body shook with the emotions he had not been able to discharge in battle.  
  
“Always,” Fëanor said, and Fingolfin felt the impress of lips on his brow, had to fight the compulsion to pull down his half-brother's head and join the kiss. But then Fëanor was gone, walking to the tent flap, looking back over one wide shoulder with a tantalizing smile.  
“I will ride to Finrod's land,” he said, and caressingly, “Come with me. Let us invite Tindómion,” he added, with a wink at his son, “and Gil-galad.”  
  


~~~

Bainalph sat. Some-one flung a cloak about his shoulders and he murmured his thanks, drawing it close for comfort rather than warmth, for the chill was of the soul, not the flesh. He had little appetite, but swallowed a few bites of dried apple and hazelnuts, a sip of emberwine. Edenel had smoothed a cool-scented unguent on his bruises. They were vivid and very tender, but would heal and fade quickly. His people gathered, seating themselves around him. After failing to find any traces of him, they had waited for the coming of the Greenwood army, Thirvain said. The king had so ordered. She looked uncomfortable at the recollection, but Bainalph agreed with Thranduil in this instance. The dead, she continued, had been taken back to Alphgarth with the more seriously wounded.

 _I am such a damnable fool. I put them at risk, and they died._  
He had wept for them in the cell, but grief could not be assuaged by tears.

“The blame for their deaths lies on my head,” he said, hearing his voice harsh with self-accusation.

“No. Do not do this to yourself,” Edenel said. “All of us, any of us should have sensed the orcs.”

Bainalph passed his fingers over the swan pendant. Alphgarth was his, its folk were his responsibility, a beloved duty. In jealousy and sorrow, he had forgotten it.

“The king rang the tocsin for you,” Thirvain said, and there was nothing in her voice, no expression in her eyes.

 _And how duty binds_ you, _Thranduil._  
He frowned, remembering the clangour of bells he had heard amidst the tumults. Not madness, then.

He slept deeply, not remembering even falling asleep. When he blinked, he found that he was lying on his side, a cloak covering him, head pillowed on another. He stretched. The sun was at the zenith in a clear sky, and somewhere a bird piped. To wake without fear, without despair, was a gift in itself. He could hear the soft murmur of voices, the whisper of the wind, and some distance away, the shallow dance of water. At last he sat up – and stared straight into Thranduil's eyes. The king was sitting beside him, long legs supple in butter-soft doeskin, face rendered savagely beautiful by the blue-black battle markings, eyes dark under their thick fringe of lashes. For a moment, a silence like thunder poured between them, and then slowly, to show that he was not cowed, Bainalph looked away.  
They had moved, he saw at once. The cloud wall that hid the mountains of Angmar was more distant, the woods to the south closer, and he knew what had happened. A badly wounded Elf, if he found himself safe, often slipped into deep sleep while his body healed. Looking at his hand, clenched hard on the cloak, Bainalph saw that the bruises had faded appreciably.

“How long?” he asked, pressing calmness into his voice.

“A day and night.” Thranduil proferred a leather cup. The scent of hot wine arose. “We gathered the provisions the Imladrians left and moved on, camping here last night.” He sounded exactly as he had any of the times they had fought together, were forced into proximity: distant, self-possessed, a king.  
Bainalph took the cup. The wine was mellow. He tasted elderberries and honey. It warmed him, drove the last rags of sleep from his mind. He must have been carried or borne on a litter. The fact did not embarrass him. He had been injured before, and performed the same office for others.

“There is a fire on the other side of the river,” Thranduil pointed. “Some-one waits there for us. The Peredhil and Elgalad have gone to him. We will move out soon.”  
The steely eyes were opaque. They always were, save for in that other life when Bainalph had been young enough and foolish enough to wager everything he was on what he had imagined lay behind them.  
He said formally, “I thank you for coming, Sire.”

“You would have won free without my aid. It was Elgalad who found you, not I.” Then, “You meant to die.”

Gathering his loose hair in his hands Bainalph pulled it over one shoulder.  
“As a warrior, Sire, if that was my fate.”  
But it had not been. He pushed aside the cloak and rose. Thranduil took his hand, and he could not pull away without a score of eyes witnessing. This was how it was before others, this difficult, stony dance of politesse. Once, Bainalph would have savoured every opportunity to be so close, to try and read something, _anything_ in the king's face to confirm in him that once there had been more than despite. Now, he could not suffer disdain transmitted through look or touch. Only when in Thranduil's company was he made to feel shameful, and though he did not believe he need be ashamed of anything he had done in his life save that ill-advised seduction in Alphgarth, the king's presence abraded his nerves, and now was unbearable.

_My soul is still too raw. Once we are moving, it will be better._

He stood resolutely still, stared past the king's face toward the river. It was still some leagues away, but he could see the Peredhil and Elgalad and another, hair bright as autumn berries. He smelled like the heart of a clean furnace. _Fire._  
And then he flinched in startlement as Thranduil's hand touched his face, drew his head about so that the king could look into his eyes. Holding himself rigid, he endured the search. It was the king's prerogative, his power and his duty to read his subjects souls, to offer the healing and strength of the forest if it were needful. The unexpectedness of the action took Bainalph aback, but he met the opening brightness of the king's eyes with resignation.

“Thou art bound to the Greenwood, and to me,” Thranduil ritually intoned the words. His voice was the voice of the silent pools, the song of leaves, the deep-drinking roots of oak and beech and dark yew, of the rain that sank through moist earth to nourish them.

“I am bound,” Bainalph whispered, like the river, like the autumn wind.

“Thou art Alphgarth.” Thranduil traced the rune of the Cúalphii on his breast, interlocking it with that of his own. Like a bird's wing, the thought flicked in the prince's mind that never could the king have less wanted to perform this act.  
“I am Alphgarth,” he echoed.

“Thou art of the Great Wood, and it calls thee to heal, and to live.”

A command, but more. Bainalph felt the forest in his veins, his feet delved into humus, touched stone, water. His hair frayed into the winter gales, danced under the summer sun. His body enclosed Alphgarth. And Thranduil was the forest entire, grounded in the heart of the world, touching the arc of the sun, holding storms in his lofty heights. He was the Wood, and Bainalph a part of it. Of him.

_The king's power. The king's duty._

Something in Thranduil's eyes closed, like a lid fitted over a well, and Bainalph gulped at air. The king withdrew his hand. Where it had touched, his flesh burned.

“Beleg told me of thy brother,” he said, the tones of wood and water falling gently back into the depths.

“My parents said little about him, Sire.”

“Thou couldst be Alphael come again.”

Bainalph turned gratefully toward Beleg's voice; the approval in it was balm.

“He died of an hundred wounds, surrounded by the foe before I or Elu Thingol could reach him,” Beleg continued. “And he was deeply mourned, brave and bright and loving. I watched a star fall and knew it was he.” He touched Bainalph's wrist, covering the fading bruises with strong, slim fingers, then his heart, and his eyes recognized the runes, the binding. “But this star will not fall.”

Bainalph felt the wry crookedness of his smile, the hot choke of his throat.  
“Not, at any rate, where the shadows are.”* He quoted the old _Golodhrim_ lay. “Or not yet.”

“ _Bainalph._ ” Thranduil enunciated his name like a cut jewel, all flashing sharp edges.

“Nowhere,” Beleg said. “Thou art made to burn bright.”

Bainalph lifted his head.  
“For a while, anyhow. I have a debt that I must repay to the sorcerer of Carn Dûm.”

“It is not for us to slay him,” Beleg said, almost sadly. “Thinks't thou we would not have?”

“Yet this young Túrin will have need of others, I think, when his time comes.”

“And he will have them.”

“Yes,” agreed Bainalph, affecting not to see Thranduil's expression. “he will.”

 

~~~

An Elf with the powers of a god, who could not extricate himself from a temporary, volatile marriage composed of four people, one of whom was his brother, the other his lover, and the last, but hardly least, the man that he had hated, and still hated for betraying that beloved elder brother.

 

_And I cannot walk away. It goes too deep, and it would be to set what Finrod did at none account. Whatever his reasons for it, I cannot do that._

Bu was that not what Eru had intended, in soul-searing _Fos Almir_? Gods should know helplessness, pain, grief and love. How else could they understand Elves and Men and the complexities that drove them?  
Glorfindel strode down to the pool-dappled stream, listening to Celegorm's biting outrage, and Finrod's calm replies. It was amusing, or would have been had it just been the two of them involved. But Finrod was still capable of surprising Glorfindel, and so was Legolas, who was climbing from a pool onto the sun-warmed sward, wringing out his hair. He threw Glorfindel a smile. Water clung to his long wet lashes, traced the hard sinews. The resurgence of carnal hunger startled Glorfindel. He had always possessed a vast appetite for Legolas, but he knew that he too had been curbed by the Laws, the disfavour seeping like miasma from Valinor, and had never truly experienced the essence of what he and all Elves were, until now. Legolas had never seemed touched by that divine disapproval, perhaps no wood-Elf was. They had never known the Valar, had unforgivably, chosen not to take the Great Journey to its conclusion.

“I could look into thy mind and see every rite that thou didst participate in,” he said, and the words dragged in his throat like a growl, a threat.

“And will you?” Legolas murmured.

“No. I would rather participate in ours. And it seems I already have.”

Legolas pressed himself close, shameless, glittering.  
“Yes, and for the first time, truly. You are beginning to see what we are. Is it not glorious?” His eyes for a moment, were like the pretty cats that had prowled Tirion's white halls, inscrutable, unhuman, fey.

“I want,” he whispered, and leaned back, so that his hair fell to the ground in a shower of winter-gold. “I want you to take me to the _Anguish._ ”

“Surely you know it.” Glorfindel hard again, so soon, clasped the slim hips.

“No. It is for the Summer King, or those who have a great deal of control.” He laughed, challenged: “Take me there.”

They had done a great many things in Imladris, and Glorfindel had enjoyed the darker, more esoteric acts of sex, but the Anguish was far beyond those.

“Here?” he asked roughly. “Now?” Knowing he would, and did not care who might see.

_Glorfindel!_

Vanimórë's cry was that of a man who has laboured to kick open a locked door for a long time.

_What is it?_

There was no lengthy explanation, not in a meetings of minds. Glorfindel had communicated with Vanimórë until the _Aran Laer_ absorbed him. With the both of them forbidden from acting, all he could do was observe, raging at his helplessness. He had not forgotten that the raid upon Carn Dûm almost coincided with Midsummer, but the rite effectively fenced him off from the rest of the world. Not for the first time Glorfindel marveled at the depth of the Mother's power, even as he cursed himself. Legolas drew back, eyes snapping into alertness. Laying a hand on the prince's taut shoulder, Glorfindel threw his mind across the leagues of Middle-earth.

They seemed to come out of impenetrable fog, those whom had entered Angmar, and others. Glorfindel recognized Thranduil, but the majority were strangers. He had never seen Bainalph, but he had heard the name from Legolas.

“What?” Legolas asked sharply. He turned his head north and west. His lips shaped: _Adar?_

Glorfindel gave him the knowledge as he had given his and Vanimórë's apotheosis and events in Valinor to all the Elves of Middle-earth. Legolas was utterly still, assimilating, and then he moved quickly, as if he would walk to Angmar, and stopped dead. His face, uplifted to the sky, was fierce, his eyes were blue glass. He could reach to his father's mind if he wished, and Glorfindel knew he did, but he also knew, though Legolas never spoke of it, how much he missed his home, willing though the separation was, and that homesickness was keener when his mind and his father's touched.  
At last he turned back, a frown striking between his brows.  
“At least they are safe,” he said. “But Bainalph...” He ran both hands through his hair.

“I remember thy words of him.”

The prince flashed him an upward glance brimful of memories.  
“What happened to him is abhorrent! You know of his history with my father?”

“Yes, it is. And I do now,” Glorfindel affirmed. “though I have not looked deeply.”

“Then you know more than most,” Legolas said. “though many guess at _something._ I did.” He gripped Glorfindel's wrists, then flung away as if driven by anger. “My father never spoke of any-one with such...venom, not even you _Golodhrim._. It disturbed me, because Bainalph is loyal and has ruled Alphgarth well. Even in the darkest times, it was a haven. When my father tried to persuade me not to serve with him awhile, as all Elves do in the forest, he was vehement, without explaining why. But I had already met you.” A swift, sweet smile broke through the gravity of his face. He paused. “That a _Golodh_ should be more acceptable than a Sindarin prince of the Wood! And so, I did go to Alphgarth.”

Glorfindel nodded. It had been the way among the Noldor also, for young men to learn the arts of war under a lord other than their own father, and had been since Gil-galad ruled Lindon, though with so many of the Noldor departing, the tradition had fallen into disuse in Imladris.

Legolas began to walk again, passing Finrod's pavilion from whence the sound of argument still issued. It fluttered, caught, stopped.

“Bainalph passed the matter off as nothing, at first,” he continued. “But then came the spring, _Nost-na-Lothion,_ and the king ordered me back to the halls. I refused.”

Glorfindel lifted his brows. “Indeed?”

Legolas turned. “It is my heritage,” he told Glorfindel. “Yours too. Bainalph is the Summer King to his people and Alphgarth. He enjoys submission, whereas my father will accept it at _Aran Laer_ for love of his land, but prefers the rite of the Winter King, when he is the one who takes without restraint.”

Glorfindel watched his face, felt his hands curl into fists, and swept air into his lungs. He said carefully, “Yes?”

“I felt Bainalph's connection to my father.” Legolas held his eyes unabashedly. “It was unmistakable, and ran very deep. I told him I knew there was something between them. He talked to me, though reluctantly. Bainalph is all laughter and sensuality. Not then. He said he had erred and was paying the blood-price demanded. But I could never comprehend _why_ it was an error. My father began to practice the old rites after my mother's death.”

Glorfindel touched his breast. “But not before. Bainalph was the first person he lay with, other than his wife.”

“You can see that?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so. And I came to believe that my father had never known what he truly desired until he had Bainalph.” Legolas searched his face. “He will live, will he not?”

“He will live,” Glorfindel assured him. “His spirit is very strong. It would have to be, to survive what was done to him.”

Legolas folded his arms, shoulders straight and rigid. “At least my father did summon the army to find him. But he was raped and his blood used... ” Disgust fleeted across his face. “He is strong, but he is wounded.”

There was no denying it. And the wound to his spirit was not new, had not originated in Angmar, but long ago, in his youth.

“He is worth loving,” Legolas declared somberly.

“Think'st thou I cannot see that?” And he wondered if Bainalph had not only shown Thranduil what he wanted, but Legolas also.

“His people adore him. It will help him recover, I think.” Legolas suddenly cursed. “There are times I think I will never understand my father, love him though I do.”

Glorfindel was loathe to delve uninvited into Thranduil's mind and memory, but he found himself thinking of Oropher, Beleg's son, whom had made himself a new life after the ruin of Doriath. The Iathrim of the Greenwood preserved their traditions, but Oropher did not; he wanted to return to the days when the Elves walked free and wild under the stars. He had been proud, independent, Glorfindel only had to look back through time to see again the rash, impossibly brave charge of Amdir and Oropher's lightly armed warriors before the Morannon. Gil-galad had cursed, and wept for the dead, but Thranduil, grimly and in grief refused to leave the field, had commanded the remnants of the Greenwood through those seven years of siege and slaughter.

“I doubt he understands himself.” Glorfindel laid an arm across Legolas' shoulders. “But there is more there than hate.”

“I have always known that,” Legolas agreed. “For there was never indifference.”

They crossed to a long table under a covered awning where wine and food had been laid out for the participants in the rite. All those others had drifted away now, to relax, and soon, perhaps tomorrow, Finrod would return to his pavilion close to his mansion, but this day was for peace.

“Oropher,” Glorfindel mused. “Did he, I wonder, disapprove of Thranduil participating in the Silvan rites. Did he in fact forbid it while he was alive?”

Legolas shook his head, spread his hands, and Glorfindel poured a light mead, still cool from the ice now melting to fragile shards in the bowls.  
“Thy grandsire looms large in Thranduil's mind.” He caught at something that trailed over the surface of his consciousness. “We always _assumed_ that Oropher embraced the Silvan rites.”

The prince hesitated. “I assumed he must have, too. But you do not need to assume now.”

“Shall I look?” Glorfindel asked.

Legolas said unhesitatingly, “Yes.”

The voices from the tent had ceased. After a moment, Celegorm and Finrod emerged from through the flaps, simply robed, hair tousled. Celegorm was flushed, eyes burning like black opals, but he said without preface, “Thou speakest of Oropher of Doriath?”

Glorfindel stared at him. “And what,” he said. “wouldst thou know of him?”

“We both knew him,” Finrod told him. “I saw him in Doriath once, when he was a child. But he came to Nargothrond after the Dagor Bragollach, when the folk of Haleth and Beleg with his Iathrim drove back the orcs, and Morgoth's forces made no further essay down the Pass of Sirion.”

Glorfindel knew that Finrod had kept in contact with Doriath by messenger and personal visit until his death, and it was natural that Thingol should send to him after the first bloody onslaught of the war had subsided. It was he who had first called Finrod, _the Beloved._

Glorfindel looked at Celegorm, who lifted his chin.  
“I could hardly help hearing thee,” he snapped, then sliced a beringed hand down. “But keep thy secrets. It is naught to me.”

“It is not my concern either,” Glorfindel snarled back.

“But it is mine,” Legolas said firmly.

Celegorm's gaze swept unhurriedly up and down the wood-Elf's lithe body. Glorfindel slapped him with his eyes, warning.  
“I will tell thee,” Celegorm said. “if it will aid thee.”

Legolas met his eyes unflinchingly, even with a trace of amusement.  
“It might aid mine understanding.”

It was was already there, Glorfindel realized, the binding forged by the _Aran Laer_. No matter that this awkward marriage would be filled with tension and arguments and jealousy, the web-work between all of them ran deeper than blood. He turned to his brother, rested his brow against Finrod's own. Finrod's arms came about him.

 

  
~~~

 

 

**Notes:**

 

*The Fall of Gil-galad.

From The fellowship of the Ring.

_Gil-galad was an Even-king._  
Of him the harpers sadly sing:  
the last whose realm was fair and free  
between the Mountains and the Sea. 

__  
His sword was long, his lance was keen,  
his shining helm afar was seen;  
the countless stars of heaven's field  
were mirrored in his silver shield. 

__  
But long ago he rode away,  
and where he dwelleth none can say;  
for into darkness fell his star  
in Mordor where the shadows are. 

~~~

Thranduil?

This is one of  
[Ebe Kastein's Elves.](http://enednoviel.fandomish.net/ebe.php) She is an amazing artist, and a really lovely person. Have a browse through her artwork. It's gorgeous.


	36. ~ The King's Duty ~

  


**~ The King's Duty ~**

~ _Oropher was not pleased to find two sons of Fëanor in Nargothrond._  
Celegorm went down in a graceful hunter's crouch beside the stream, scooped water in his palms to drink, then decisively pulled off his robe and stepped in. There was something acutely feral in him, quite apart from the Fëanorion fire in his veins. In the silver-black glitter of his eyes, the way he moved over the land was a breath of Silvan.  
 _He was very young, I think, and hid it less well than his companions, who were feasted in the great hall while they were there. I rode out two days after the Iathrim arrival, to Taur-en-Faroth, hunting._ A faint smile curved his mouth. _So must Oropher have done, although I did not know until he dropped down from a tree before my horse._

Legolas watched his face, the restless passion in it.

_We did not speak. It began as a fight; he wanted to test me, to best me, and then it was a battle indeed._

_He wanted to dominate you,_ Legolas said.

_I. Fëanor's son, and he a youth barely at his majority._ Celegorm laughed briefly, not unkindly. _Oh, never think it was rape. He looked as offended as a cat after, and as haughty._ He climbed onto the warm grass and ran his fingers through his hair. _In Nargothrond, he came to me again._

_Even after?_

The Fëanorion shrugged. _It was a game. It was amusing. He hated me, but either he truly wanted to submit, or he thought he could force me to._

_So, he would not have found it easy to become the_ Aran Laer.

_Thou wouldst have to ask Glorfindel. But I think some people cannot. Will not. I would not, neither would my father._

Legolas turned, looked at Glorfindel, at Finrod.

“ _Did_ Oropher ever become the Greenwood's Summer King?” he asked.

Glorfindel's eyes assumed that look of vision as he tapped the spring of his vast power, focusing on one soul among a myriad.

“No,” he said, at last, slowly. “He saved a chieftains life, a clan who were embattled. Later there were some secret lovers who enjoyed subjugation. Yet the wood-Elves have never been coy about such things.”

Legolas said, “No, they are not. This makes no sense.”

“Oropher resented his own father,” Glorfindel said, enlightened, running his thoughts lightly to the root of another memory-strand. “Beleg left his lover and his children to follow another. Oropher vowed he would never do the same, would cleave to his wife, and children.”

“My father certainly never resented Beleg,” Legolas exclaimed. “He revered him. All the forest did.”

“Beleg was not _his_ father,” Glorfindel said. “Thranduil never knew him, only the legend. There are many reasons,” he continued, “for people to becomes lovers, all their lives or briefly: friendship, similar – or very different – tastes in the bedchamber.” He slanted a blue look along his shoulder at Finrod, who blazed as if a lamp-wick were turned up under his skin. Celegorm draped his robe over one arm, running a hand meticulously across the folds, and lifted a mocking brow.  
“Love,” Glorfindel continued. “which nevertheless may not be the greatest love. Desire. And duty, which we Noldor know only too well. Oropher felt he had a duty to marry because he saw his mother as wronged, _himself_ as wronged, abandoned. He knew Túrin in Doriath, could see his father's growing passion and love for the Man that, in the end eclipsed everything, and brought him to death. He loved his father, but could not forgive him.”

“My father,” Legolas said thoughtfully. “never pressed me to wed. And so perhaps Oropher's tastes ran otherwhere, but he was bound by duty, or believed he was, as was my father. I need to know.”

Glorfindel mentally stepped back from the image that had been building itself in his mind and surveyed it.  
“Very well,” he said. “Oropher saved the life of one of the Great Wood's chieftain's; thy maternal grandfather, Legolas. He literally arrived there with his Iathrim and found himself in a battle. The Silvans had suffered in the First Age, and were wary of incomers, but they recognized that the Iathrim were touched by the Mother, through Melian. Oropher and Thranduil lived some years with them, and Oropher became king in time. He would not wed again, considered it would be to dishonour his wife's memory, and would not undergo the _Aran Laer,_ but promised his son would marry the chieftain's daughter, to bind their blood to the Great Wood.”

Legolas stared into the west, lips slightly parted.  
“But no Silvan would have cared that Bainalph and my father were lovers. The practice of having one mate forever was one aspect of _Golodhrim_ tradition I could never understand nor force myself to accept.”

“Does it not matter to thy folk?” Celegorm asked curiously. “Bloodline and dynasty? What if thy father had sired a score of sons?”

“All would be acknowledged,” Legolas told him. “Marriage does not make a child any more legitimate, not among the Silvans. Children are too precious. And does it truly matter among the _Golodhrim_? Tindómion was always a Fëanorion, was he not?”

“Yes,” Glorfindel said. “Bastardy should have no place among the Elves, but among the Noldor it was uncommon anyhow, because most of us did adhere to the Valarin Laws.”

“Silvan marriage customs are different.” Legolas shrugged. “If two people wish to bind themselves for a short time or a long, they do so. These marriages,” he indicated the four of them. “are far more common than the marriages made by you _Golodhrim._ The Silvans had no Girdle of Melian, no Valinor, no Elven Ring, and violence came too oft and easily for us to cling to one mate when the future of the tribe was what mattered, and the begetting of more children. Thus the _Aran Laer,_ which spread the blood of the strongest Elves and ensured the Silvans survival.”

“But _Oropher_ clung to duty, or to an ideal,” Glorfindel mused. “to what he saw as his honour, and raised his son to believe the same. And Thranduil, though he loved his wife, saw that among the Silvans, whom he loved, he alone was unfree. And his marriage was a blood-binding, Legolas. Didst thou not know?”

Legolas' eyes widened with understanding. “No,” he said on a revelatory breath. “ _Ah._ I have never known it to happen.”

“What is a blood binding?” Celegorm asked impatiently.

“It is something like the Blood-kiss, but binding one to the land through marriage,” Legolas explained. “If one clan moved into the territory of another and desired to dwell there in peace, mingling their blood, they could be accepted by a blood-binding marriage.”

“Oropher saw that it would be a way of binding his son irrevocably to the Silvans, and ensuring Thranduil would succeed him were he to die,” Glorfindel said. “Thranduil was young. He took the marriage and his vows very seriously.”

“So he truly did believe he had offended against my mother?”

“In his eyes, he profaned something ancient and holy. Hells, what we do for duty's sake!” Glorfindel flashed. “Even love and pleasure are warped by it. And love...” He saw perturbation in Legolas' expression, and said: “Thy parents were happy, Legolas. Their marriage was joyful, never regretted. Thranduil blamed Bainalph because he believed that he always could have been.”

Legolas shook his head. “I never thought otherwise. But love cannot be harnessed like a plow horse, cannot be predicted or tamed or controlled.”

Finrod drew Celegorm away, who did not protest, but looked back as he walked away, black-silver eyes, speculative, heated. Glorfindel watched him with annoyance.

“They have been bound since that night,” Legolas whispered. “The wood acknowledged it, blessed it. My father could never escape Bainalph. I wonder if he knows that now? I wonder if he always knew it.”

~~~

As soon as Elgalad crossed the river, Vanimórë's soul enveloped his in a silk-steel cloud of love and relief.

_My dear._

Elgalad responded wordlessly even as Coldagnir stepped into his arms.  
“Thou d-didst sense the power?” he asked, seeing the banked terror in his eyes. Coldagnir nodded, but whatever his fears, he had prepared for their arrival, gathered deadfall for a fire, roasted a young Elk, picked herbs and spread heather to offer comfortable bedding.

“Gothmog,” Coldagnir said, forcing the word out. “Gone now, but he was there.”

Elgalad kissed him. “Thou art b-beyond him.”

“What seest thou in me that I cannot?” the Balrog asked wonderingly. “And I know I must face him again.”

The fact and the future was in his eyes, and Elgalad could not deny it, but his hands closed comfortingly on Coldagnir's arms.  
“And d-defeat him.”

The Balrog smiled like a pale flame.  
“Fëanor told us of the Elf imprisoned in Carn Dûm,” he said, clearly trying to force his mind to other matters. “Dana allowed him to see what passed there. And that there were women who might be sick, like those we brought from Dale.”

“They will need rest for a while,” Elgalad said, as the twins began to sort through the herbs.

Coldagnir withdrew as the women and Elves began to cross the river, the Uruk-hai and Easterners at the rear. They began to settle, each in their own enclave, as it were, but there was plenty of meat for all, and no-one refused to take away as much as their dagger would bear, or to take a swallow of mead. It was a most peculiar situation, Elgalad thought, but since Vanimórë had said nothing, and because he could understand that strange bedfellows could be formed in war, he accepted it. The Men and Uruk-hai were watched, of course, but there was no threat apparent in their demeanor. This was a time of rest. They ate, drank and talked in low voices, but swept many a long glance toward Angmar.

Elgalad watched Thranduil and Bainalph, saw how the prince would not look at the king, and how Thranduil did look, his face expressionless.

_It is too hard for him, for Bainalph._  
It was Maeglin, come in silence to his side, with a cup of hot wine.

_Yes._ And, _Thou hast known this._  
It was not a question.

_In the end I could scarce bear to look upon Glorfindel. Yet I wept in the Void when I was made to witness his death._

_Thranduil would have wept had Bainalph died._ Elgalad thanked him for the wine and shared the cup, earning an unexpected smile.

_Thou art very like Beleg. He, too will not easily judge._

_At the heart of what thou didst,_ Elgalad passed the cup back to Maeglin, touched his arm, _there was love. Love is more powerful than hate, and far more dangerous._  
He picked his way through the camp, feeling Maeglin's eyes on him. Thranduil turned as he approached. They had hardly exchanged one word as yet.  
“Sire,” Elgalad greeted him, and was swept into the king's embrace. He returned it, but withdrew after a moment. Thranduil had been thus demonstrative toward him since he had come to Mirkwood, and Elgalad had appreciated it deeply, but it was not he who needed affection now. He gazed into the king's face, accustomed to Vanimórë's, to knowing that an impassive mien could hide the tumults of a raging soul. Thranduil's eyes, the blue sheened with steel, had always been harder to read than Legolas', and now they were dark as storm-clouds.

“The Greenwood still misses you,” the king said.

“And I thee, all of th-thee,” Elgalad responded truthfully. “And Bainalph. I d-did not know...” He hesitated. “In Carn Dûm, he told that if he died, if I saw thee, he wished th-thee joy.”  
It was an unfair blow, and he delivered it without pity. Thranduil had not seen Bainalph in that cell, nor heard his words. And the king's face burned into a discomfiture Elgalad had never seen before. It was brief, startling, and there was shame in it. Then anger burst into those sword-bright eyes, and Thranduil's head swung toward where Bainalph sat speaking softly with his people. The king seemed to catch back whatever he had been going to say, hold it behind a snap of white teeth.  
“We will not be so caught off-guard again,” he said after a moment of struggle.  
He had pitched his voice, a king's voice, a voice that commanded armies, to carry. Bainalph lifted his head at that, and rose. Still half-naked, his hair a loose white cloud, he looked distractingly lovely, and utterly a prince.

“I alone carry the blame for the deaths of my folk.” His own sweet tone was pitched low, its music tempered.

“And have paid the blood price,” Thranduil told him, gathering a wave of agreement like a soft, fierce wind.

“Blood.” Bainalph's lips compressed. “They took my blood...the one called the Mouth. I can feel it within him, and that other...”

“Once, Sauron used my blood to give the Mouth unnatural life.”

Elgalad whirled, ran toward Vanimórë and embraced him, arms straining at the warm sinewy strength. Coldagnir must have returned to their camp on the Emyn Uial to stay with Zeva, and allow Vanimórë to come here. Determinedly, desperately, he kissed the sumptuous mouth, and felt the response that quivered through Vanimórë's body.

“ _Damn_ choice,” Vanimórë murmured, one hand cradling his face. “To imagine thee in danger well-nigh drove me mad.”  
He stepped forward then and his eyes flashed over the encampment, dwelling on the women, the Uruk-hai before resting on Thranduil, and then Bainalph, who stared back. His face had gone very still under the wind-rippled hair.

“King Thranduil,” Vanimórë bowed, and moved like an arrogant cat past the wood-Elves, to Bainalph.

“We must speak of this, and the Mouth,” he said. “What he is doing, or trying to do.”

Without effort, he drew their attention, brought down quiet. Even before Fos Almir, he had the presence of a god, and now he had come, Elgalad thought, observing him with pride, pleasure sinking deep into his loins, into his destiny. He spoke to all of them, but his eyes held Bainalph's.

“Malantur – _he_ may have forgotten his name, but I have not – came to Mordor long ago. He was a legend to most. A name. A dread.” His profile was to Elgalad and he saw it as white and hard as stone. “He had many qualities Sauron desired in a servant: he was ambitious, without empathy or compassion, and he obeyed orders unquestioningly. He was clever, and courageous then, for how many Men would willingly come before the Dark Lord? Yet he did. And so, Sauron used blood-magic on him to extend his life. _My_ blood. No doubt Malantur recalls the ceremonies well enough, but he is not a Power, and I think he lost his sanity long ago. He must have been terrified when Sauron fell, but his decay will be slow, I imagine. He would not age in a moment and crumble to dust. So he began to think of a life beyond Sauron, and most importantly, how he could retain his unaging life. He dared not merely hope that the spell would hold. And Carn Dûm would have drawn him like a beacon. That chain of mountains is all that remains of the Ered Engrin, of Angband. I can feel it.” His eyes lifted briefly to the shrouded north.  
“As for the monster, he is using dark magics on the children. He wants a guard like all of thee.” He gestured to the silent Uruk-hai. “Yet stronger, to protect him while he builds his kingdom. And Angmar will call to those of ill-will: orcs, Men who thrive on plunder and violence. Malantur dreams of becoming the next Dark Lord, but others have heard his dreams, or he has truly gone mad. He may be attempting to call spirits from the Void to habit his body.”

There was a hiss of denial and shock across the camp.

“If such a thing should happen it would surely burn him to ashes,” Vanimórë continued. “And perhaps he retains enough of a sense of self-preservation to know it, thus he seeks to strengthen himself.” His eyes came back to Bainalph. “I know how it feels, prince, to sense one's blood in another's, but it will fade. The memories never do, I am sorry.” He held out a hand. “Wilt thou walk with me?” And he smiled. Bainalph's long-lidded eyes blinked at the force of it.

“Long have I desired to meet Elgalad's lord,” he responded courteously.

Elgalad slanted a look at Thranduil, and saw the lightning-strike of anger cross his face, felt it answered in his own blood, and was ashamed of it.

~~~

They stopped beyond the camp, where the larches wandered down to drink at the river. Bainalph found himself falling willingly, helplessly, into eyes of blazing violet. The light behind them was furious, intent, but not unkind. Elgalad had described Vanimórë well, but no description could capture his force, the power of his dark beauty, still less his charisma.  
 _Thou hast every right to be angry._

_Are there no secrets I can keep?_ Bainalph asked bitterly. _Can you see everything?_

_Not everything, no. Angmar is hidden from me. From Glorfindel also._

_Elgalad said he could feel me, when he was within the fortress._

Vanimórë's sleek black brows crooked a little. He glanced over Bainalph's shoulder toward the camp.  
 _He is of the Great Wood, and he loves thee. And thy healing is begun, but not ended._

Slave of Sauron, Bainalph thought, with all that entailed.  
 _You have told me I am healing, and indeed, I will not die of rape. But..._

_Thou art not sure how to live?_

_I will live by living._ He saw an appreciative smile glint in the purple eyes. No, he had not imagined the kindness there.  
 _I want to know if my blood will truly extend the Mouth's life._

Very lightly, as if he would not presume, Vanimórë touched his heart.  
 _It will,_ he said, _Thy spirit is very strong. There is power in blood. But it will loathe him, as my blood did, and he will feel that._ Grimness tautened his scrolled mouth. A shiver weltered through Bainalph's body, and when Vanimórë opened his arms, he went into them. This was not Thranduil's earth power nor Elgalad's white love, but something rich and dark as fire-shot silk and sword-steel, complex as old wine. He was alien and familiar and sensual, and he wanted to _give._ Little wonder Elgalad loved him.

_There is something I would ask of thee._ His voice came through storm.

_Ask it._

_Thou couldst see Malantur, when thou wert in Carn Dûm._

Bainalph felt iron sinews under his hands, but he could not see anything but the heart of Vanimórë's flame.

_Yes._

_I need thee to look again, beautiful swan, and to come with thee._

His rejection was instinctive, instantaneous. The light poured back into the world, and he heard his sharp rebuttal ring on the air. Vanimórë's eyes held complete understanding, compassion wrought out of his own pain.

“Then do not,” he said, very gently.

There was a wash of air shirred by a silent, swift body forcing them apart, a hand on Bainalph's shoulder, a glint of dark gold hair.

“What do you want of him?” hissed Thranduil.

Bainalph stepped away, his heart wayward, the pulse of horror and disgust beating in his veins.  
 _Blood._  
“Why?” he asked.

“Peace,” Vanimórë said to Thranduil. “Were there another way I would not have asked. Bainalph's blood within the Mouth allowed him to see. And I want to see Malantur.”

“He said no. It is enough.”

“It is enough,” Vanimórë agreed.

“Wait,” Bainalph said, and again. “Why?”

Vanimórë's eyes came back to him.  
“By now he knows some power moves against him, but not who.” His white teeth showed like a sword. “I want him to know. He took me many times when I was under Sauron's power, unable to stop him, helpless as thou wert. I want him to know I survived. I want him,” he ended. “in terror. It will give me very great pleasure. And frightened men make mistakes.”

Bainalph stared at him. “ _That_ I understand.” But he was afraid, afraid to go back into that dark place. And so, of course, he must. No-one had questioned his courage before. He did not want to question it.  
“What do I have to do?”

Vanimórë bowed to him and took his hand. Their fingers laced.

_Look at me._

Through the hurtling fall which took him back into the dark, Bainalph felt his free hand caught, Thranduil's presence rooted in his soul. With them both, he flung himself into horror.


	37. ~ A Young Man of Mordor ~

  
~ Receiving his orders at last, Kashan stepped into the ward. The rain, driving almost horizontally under percussive clouts of thunder, limited his vision, but it did not take him long to find what he was looking for. He regarded Hrath with distaste and not a little satisfaction. The man had always been gross, but since coming to Carn Dûm his appetites, once curbed by the duties imposed by rank, had burgeoned like a poisonous weed. It was an open secret he had used the Elf, raping him and taking blood which was reserved for the Mouth. One assumed the master was aware, but even were he not, Hrath stood too high in his favour for any-one to expose him. When Kashan heard the Uruk-hai call Hrath ' _Horseskull_ ' he had smiled, dourly amused. The name suited.  
  
“Carry the body inside,” he told two of the men. “The master wishes to see it.” Only the Dark God knew why. Even had they the skill to treat such wounds, Hrath was beyond aid. Turning away, Kashan quartered the ward. The postern gate was closed, the dead Men taken within to be prepared for immolation, the orcs for whatever purpose the Mouth decreed. Glad to retreat from the storm, he investigated the Elf's cell and found the dead creature. The soldiers of Durthang were accustomed to orcs, but this was another matter. There had been rumours of monsters, the Uruk-hai had spoken of children twisted by sorcery, and no-one could ignore the screams that rose through the air shafts, but there had been no verification of the whispers until now. They pitched the carcase out through the gap in the wall.  
  
“Get that filled.” He indicated the rubble. “And block the passage beyond. Send word to me when it is done.”  
  
Unnerved, hoping he concealed it, Kashan set guards, and retired to his chamber, where he shucked his wet armour before writing his report. The loss of the women would enrage the master, though Kashan had heard from Lion that at least half of them had already died, and having seen the dead horror, he did not doubt it. He forced his mind away from the images that inevitably flowered there, and concentrated on writing. The charcoal stick scratched carefully over the scraped hide as he considered the words of his report. One did not ask questions, but he was deeply troubled. Why had no-one been sent to follow the Elves, and why, when the temple tower collapsed in running flame last Moondark had no-one been ordered to investigate?  
  
The men were uneasy and rightly, for there were certain military procedures that should have been implemented. To do nothing was bad for discipline, and did not reflect well on their master. Kashan would never have voiced his opinion, but it was plain that the Mouth cared only for his own skin, and since his soldiers could help him preserve it, he had kept the majority back from that slaughter in the ward. This inaction sat very ill with the young officer, as did everything in Angmar. He could not have refused the Mouth's order to accompany him into the North, but wished that the man had not survived the war. He would never forget the day when Mordor shook to its bedrock, and a cloud of ash forked with lightning had risen from Lugbúrz,* fuming so high that it seemed it must cover the world and crush it in its descent. Kashan had flung himself to the ground as the fortress heaved and groaned, expecting death. Yet more frightening had been the voice that sheared the edge of his mind like a razor before fading into unguessable distances. He was raw and shaken for many days after.  
  
But Durthang stood, shielded by mountains, and founded deep into the rock. It was said to have been built by the Men from the Sea long ago, and that sorcery was wrought into its bones.  
  
What was there for a young soldier when his overlord was gone, the war lost? Hrath, then castellan of Durthang, spoke of traveling down to Nurnen, but the arrival of the Mouth had forced him to abandon his plans. Others of the garrison had made their own decisions, and quietly left while Hrath sequestered himself in the keep and drank. Kashan wished he had done the same, but every man of Durthang was apprehensive, and the survivors who straggled in with tales of destruction compounded the sense of shock. He did not feel it right to abandon them, though he would have suffered no guilt at leaving Hrath who, when faced with a disaster, retreated into a bottle.  
  
And so, the spoils of honour. Now Kashan was immured in this dank fortress with a dwindling garrison, serving the Mouth of Sauron, a craven madman, from all he had seen and heard.  
_But do not even think it._  
Coward or no, he had power.  
  
Thunder slammed against the walls, shivering the furs across the window. The fire leapt and smoked its displeasure. Kashan cursed. Accustomed to the dry heat of Mordor, he loathed the mist, the rain, the pervasive damp, the primitive conditions. One's only escape was hunting for food in the woods to the south. The sun shone there, it was warm in the summer, and game was plentiful, but the winters were a test of endurance. Boredom set in among the men. There were no pleasures to be had save gambling, drinking, or taking a lover to share the endless nights and perhaps more importantly, there was no purpose. While the officers closest to the Mouth became ever more distant from the garrison, Kashan found himself shouldering more responsibility, and _thinking_.  
  
He poured a beaker of mead, stared into it, then drank. Supplies were another concern that had never presented a problem in Mordor. Lithlad and Gorgoroth were barren, riven by smoking fissures, but regular caravans traveled up from Nurnen. There were vast leagues of tillage about the Bitter Sea, droves of kine and sheep, mines in the mountains, traders out of Khand and the lands further east arriving with their exotic goods and even more exotic tales. The Mouth needed people to harvest, to husband and to breed, and the orcs had killed or imprisoned the natives of Angmar. Kashan had seen their roofless, burned homesteads, the scattered bones. It had not been a rich land before; though somewhat protected by the mountains, it was drear and chill, but the native people had known how to survive there. There was nothing in Carn Dûm but rock, water, and a coal-mine to the east, where orcs dug to feed the furnaces. If the game-rich woods to the south were occupied by an enemy, the garrison would starve.  
  
And they could not survive without more people. The slave farms of Nurnen had provided Mordor with its soldiers, its smiths, its artisans and labourers. There was nothing comparable in Angmar. Resisting the temptation to hurl the cup against the wall, Kashan drained the mead, placed more coal on his small fire, and went out to investigate the Elf's cell again. He had seen the creature only once and from a distance, when the Uruk-hai brought it in as a bargaining counter. He had thought them myth. Picking up the chains, running his thumbs over the impossibly clean cuts, he frowned. They had been told that Carn Dûm was impregnable. It was not, and this raid, like the attack upon the temple, _must_ have been planned to coincide with Moondark. Some-one knew that the sorcerer was weak then.  
  
_Who?_  
  
One could not live in Mordor and not recognize the touch of Power. Durthang was far from Lugbúrz, yet one felt the Great Lord's presence always, a black heat on the skin. Kashan knew, whatever Hrath might say, that no earthquake or lightning bolt had destroyed the tower, just as no natural storm had ripped the skies, and shaken the fortress last night.  
  
Later he tallied their losses, the Easterners, the Uruk-hai, the women. The slaves, women past their child-bearing years, men with the grey thick in their beards, remained. At least they were fed, sheltered and, because they were useful, were spared torment. And they had nowhere to go. The tribesmen would try to journey back to their homeland. But what of the Elves? Where had they come from? For all Kashan knew there might be an army of them beyond the mists. And the sorcerer said and did _nothing._  
  
They did not know enough about what passed in the world, an oversight which had already cost lives. Kashan was accustomed to a well-structured military life, and had set the men training schedules to attempt to maintain discipline, but it was already decaying. There had been fights, a few involving fatalities, with punishment meted out by the Mouth himself. No-one saw those men again. Of course such infractions had to be dealt with, but there were so few men that death sentences were wasteful. Hrath said it taught them respect, but the soldiers already feared their master. What they needed, and did not have, was pride in their service. They had been trained from childhood knowing that once the orcs had overrun the failing West they, the Men, would march under Sauron's banner into the conquered lands.  
  
After eating with the men in the cavernous common room, Kashan returned to his chamber. he tended to his armour, then shrugged a fur over his shoulders and stared into the fire, permitting himself to imagine how different his life might be had the Slave of Sauron survived the war. Almost as legendary as the Great Lord and surrounded by as many myths, men vied to serve under him.  
  
_I never had the chance._  
  
The rain fell, a monotonous dirge to an unrealized dream. A puddle had formed under the unglazed window, and the skins that hung across it grew mould. Kashan sat closer to the fire, working fat into his boots and leather tassetts. Everything rotted or rusted in this place if it was not treated constantly.  
  
“The lord screams his name, did you know?” Hrath had said last winter. “When he takes that pretty-boy piece of arse.” He laughed, eyes oily with insinuation. “ _Vanimórë._ Remember him? The master had him. Think of it. Pity he's dead, maybe the master would have brought him, too. Maybe we could all have tried him.”  
  
_Only in your dreams,_ Kashan thought contemptuously, but said nothing, removing himself from the other's offensive presence. Hrath enjoyed baiting him, but it went no further than that. As an officer, Kashan had duties, and could no longer be forced, Remembering his own usage and redemption, he wished he could do more for the youthful Easterner, but a soldier of Mordor did not interfere with his superiors. They obeyed orders. What else was there?  
  
_Nothing, now._  
  
Kashan was slave-born, coming from Nurnen to Durthang in his twelfth year. Like all the youths, he had been catamite to his elders and officers. No-one complained of rough bedsport, indeed the boys never came virgin from Nurnen, for all knew what was expected of them, but Hrath was foul, and the Mouth even more so. Kashan had pitied the young tribesman, whose own people clearly had no such custom, and chanced a word with him on their long journey. The youth did not answer, moving like one lost to himself and to hope. There was a nightmare in his eyes, and no awakening.  
  
_“I know how it feels,”_ he had murmured. But at least he could hold on to a memory...  
  
He had come to Durthang, the Slave of Sauron, the year before the great defeat, his arrival heralded by the ring of horses' hooves on rock, a rare sound, for horses did not thrive in Mordor save around Nurnen. There was a bustle in the outer ward, then a man strode through the gateway. He was very tall, slim, wide-shouldered, clad in black mail, and carrying a helm under one arm. The hilts of twin swords rode at his back. His hair was drawn back and braided, swinging behind him thick as a warrior's arm, black as pitch, and though Kashan had never seen him before, he knew him from the tales. The fabled violet eyes scanned the ward, and the youth felt as if his mind and body both had been slapped by a gemmed gauntlet. The training soldiers frankly gaped, caught into amazed silence as a slave hurried across with water, eyes on the ground. The visitor drank, by which time Hrath had come to greet him.  
  
Kashan did not see him again until the evening, when Hrath presided over an evening meal to honour their guest, for despite his designation, it was common knowledge that he occupied a very special position within Mordor. Kashan spent longer than usual preparing, washing and combing his short dark hair, though the notion of making a favourable impression on the godlike beauty was risible. His hands shook a little as he fastened the belt of his long tunic. Like the loose trews and boots it was black, without ornamentation, for even his recent promotion did not allow for vanity, and when out of armour, all Mordorian soldiers dressed alike. But Kashan has always been called fair, even though this was not a desirable attribute in the army, ensuring that he had to work harder at his martial pursuits. The slave-born of Mordor were bred from the races of many lands, and none knew their parentage. It did not matter; all counted themselves as one people. Kashan's skin was golden, his eyes a clear hazel, and he owned the delicate features and lithe slenderness of the Variags. It was not his appearance he wanted to be noticed for, but if the Slave _should_ happen to look at him...  
With a self-mocking grimace, he joined the young men as they hastened to the hall. During the meal, they hardly spoke, dividing their attention between the man on the dais and their platters. Hrath had broached barrels of Nurnen wine, and his cup was refilled often, hinting at nerves. He was a winebibber, but only in private and after the duties of the day were discharged. The Slave drank and ate little, perfectly poised, a centerpiece of disturbing radiance. As the evening progressed, and the wine flowed more liberally, Hrath's over-loud laugh hacked the air. When he rose to dismiss the men, he called Kashan's name.  
  
“Bad luck,” commiserated copper-skinned Vaija in an undervoice, offering sympathy with an unobtrusive touch to Kashan's back. He and black Narok had come from Nurnen in the same caravan as Kashan, and were the only people he considered friends. The three had helped one another in earlier days, when all suffered from the castellan's attentions. Kashan was no longer a tyro, and compliance was not expected of him, but Hrath was not a man to cross, and misfortune tended to fall on those who fell afoul of him. Tonight he was drunk, and would be savage. Kashan had hoped he would be too involved with the guest to think of pleasure, but copious wine and the Slave's untouchable magnificence had obviously inflamed his lusts.  
  
“Did you prepare?” Narok asked, would-be casual as he went by. Kashan shook his head. He had been thinking of other things, and cursed himself for a fool.  
  
“I have some salve,” Vaija said under his breath. “I will bring it when he lets you go.”  
  
Kashan nodded, and walked up to the dais, bowing to hide the loathing and disappointment he knew would be clear in his eyes. Thus the end of his dreams. The Slave of Sauron would see him not as a warrior, but a plaything.  
  
“If there is anything Durthang can do to make you more comfortable, lord,” Hrath was saying thickly. “we are at your service.”  
  
“Of course thou art. And how very thoughtful of thee to provide me with such a charming companion.” The voice was honey-smooth, with a lilting accent that reminded Kashan of the traders from far Eastern lands. His head jerked up, and he looked directly into luminous eyes that faintly smiled. Hrath choked, coughing on discomfiture. Ignoring him, the Slave rose and gestured. “Let us take the air Kashan, before retiring. And castellan, thou shalt await me. Alone.”  
They walked from the hall under a barrage of staring eyes, and in the same profound silence, climbed the walls of the outer keep. From this elevation one could see the louring glow of the volcano thirty leagues away and, far to the left of it, the colossus of Lugbúrz, eternal black sun of Mordor.  
The Slave's presence was no less compelling. Kashan found he was trembling. Hrath was vile, but the thought of being bedded by this man literally petrified him. He had not come close to imagining the sheer physical presence.  
  
_Do not fear. It pleased me to thwart that piece of filth._  
  
Kashan jumped. The voice was in his _mind._  
  
_Come._  
  
Dazedly, he followed as the Slave strode along the parapet, past guards who stared ahead, and, Kashan knew, would not be able to resist looking when they had passed, then down across the wards into the great keep, where Hrath had given his chambers over to the guest. Kashan sank to his knees before the hearth where a small fire burned against the still-cold nights.  
  
“I saw thee in the ward, training.” the Slave said. “And in the hall.” He smiled and the lamps burned brighter.  
“Thou didst want to talk to me?”  
  
Although born and bred in Mordor, Kashan had never come this close to power. His face flooded with heat. He bent his head, said quietly and very quickly, before he lost the courage to speak at all: “My lord, I would serve you.”  
  
“Look at me.”  
  
Meeting those eyes was like lifting a heavy war-shield.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“They say you choose the _best,_ lord. I am well trained.”  
  
“The best.” The Slave's mouth, its curves so unexpectedly voluptuous in the hard-boned face, lifted faintly. “Of course. How old art thou?”  
  
“Seventeen, my lord. I have always...dreamed of serving you.” He clasped his hands tightly together.  
  
“I know.” His movements fluid, effortless, the Slave rose, extended a hand. Kashan felt the strength of the man strike into his bones as he was drawn to his feet.  
“After the war, I am to form an elite guard.” There were undertones of complexity in his voice. “I will call thee.”  
  
“My lord.” Kashan fought for breath, delighted and stunned. “My lord, I will serve you and the Great Lord well, I vow it.”  
  
Hrath had never dared approach him after that night. Apparently, once chosen by the Slave, he was reserved. The younger men were envious and awed, speculating on what Kashan's new life might be like. But the war had ended in appalling defeat before he ever saw battle. The call had never come.  
  
He stared into the fire, hating this place, the end of a long, dangerous and confusing road, almost the end of the habitable world. Every-one knew that the West feared Mordor, but it had been his home, his life. There was fear, but it was distant, concentrated in the vast tower, and was heavily founded on generations of respect. In Carn Dûm the dread was close, seeping into the skin. There were eyes on one's back, the sense of something lurking in the shadows, something old and pitiless that could break a man's mind with a thought. Little wonder the men drank and huddled in the hall together, evincing no interest in exploring the great empty fortress.  
  
Last winter two of the guards had either fallen or thrown themselves from the battlements, and he had found one man weeping noiselessly, cutting into his arm with a dagger. In the spring, three soldiers on a hunting trip had gone missing in the southern woods. One had been slain by a great bear, and the other two refused to return. Kashan had shot the arrows that killed them himself, hating the necessity because he understood why they fled and would lief as joined them. But there was nowhere to go. With the Men of the West victorious, any-one who had served Mordor would be seen as the enemy.  
  
Footsteps, whispers, growing, fading, moving shadows. Kashan hunched his shoulders as the hair rose on the back of his neck. He looked around, but there was nothing there. As an officer, he had his own chamber, but he had to force himself to sleep there, and kept the fire and the cressets burning. The constant vigilance against a threat he could not see wearied him, and many of the men slept only after drinking heavily. He could not afford to do that and keep their respect. Tiredly, he rested his head on his arms.  
  
_“Tell me about thyself,”_ the Slave invited.  
  
_“My lord, there is nothing to tell.”_  
  
_“Every-one has something to tell, Kashan.”_  
  


Kashan.

~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter end notes:  
> * Lugbúrz, the orcs name (and possibly Sauron's) for Barad-dûr.
> 
> I think these OC's, Lion, Vixen, Zeva, Kashan deserve their own spin-off story at some point. :)
> 
> Kashan inspiration from http://longhairedsexgods.tumblr.com/archive


	38. ~ Horrors No Soul Should Face ~

**Warning for horror.**

 

While I am not sure how horrible it really is, (I mean to read; the idea is horrific) but what with the Mouth's experiments I will warn to be on the safe side. ****

**~~~  
**

 

  
~  Kashan was summoned to the Mouth's presence two days later, on a morning of heavy rain that thickened the eternal mist to fog. He had never descended to the chambers beneath the fortress until now. Those that passed back and forth were orcs, or Hrath and Alanka, the trusted captains. Kashan was surprised, for here were no rough-hewn tunnels or hurriedly chopped steps, but skilled stonework, massive, squat fan-vaulting. And there were sounds: distant screams, a thrumming roar as of great fires burning, the muffled thump of smith-work.  
  
The Mouth received him in a chamber scattered with furs. A firepit bisected the floor, and beyond it, on a great couch hewn from rock and padded by pelts, the sorcerer half lay, propped on one arm. Orcs ranked behind him, and Alanka stood close by.  
Kashan had never seen the master so soon after Moondark. The man looked as one recovering from a long illness. His face was ashy, hollow and, as he moved, gesturing with the hand that held Kashan's report, white threads gleamed in his hair.  
  
“Thou hast been thorough,” he said. “And I commend thee. I have noted the comment upon the lack of women and the future of Angmar.”  
  
A soldier was not supposed to offer personal opinions, and Kashan had hesitated before writing. He bent his head.  
  
“Yes...” The man's hand was feverishly hot as it came under his chin, lifted it. Kashan fought not to jerk away. Suddenly the Mouth smiled. “Thy concerns are groundless. Come.” As he rose, the furs that swathed him fell aside to reveal breeches and boots, but his torso was naked, sleek with sweat. There were shadows beneath his ribs, and his spine was clearly visible, but he walked without effort toward a door on his right. Alanka fell in behind him, an orc opened the door, and stood aside.  
  
Hrath's corpse lay on a pile of skins, his groin a mess of raw flesh, his skin grey-white. A faint sweet-sick scent pervaded the room.  
  
“Knowest thou why I wanted him?” the Mouth asked conspiratorially, and without waiting for an answer, “He will be useful. He wanted immortality, and now he shall have it, and _how_ he will hate it. His manhood is gone, but he will find other paths to pleasure. He will have to.”  
  
 _But,_ Kashan thought, his spine fusing into a column of ice. _He is_ dead.  
  
“Yes...it was one of my lord Sauron's names: the Necromancer. He taught me much.” A secretive smile bent his lips. “Come.” He strode toward another door. The room beyond was larger, lit by fires and cressets. And it stank of blood. The sorcerer beckoned him across to a stone slab, and when he saw what lay on it. Kashan could not suppress a choking exclamation. It was an orc, or had been when it was alive, one of the smaller breed, and a male, but above its loins the belly was distended and crossed with coarse stitches as if it had been cut apart and roughly sewn up again. The Mouth glanced at him sidelong, drew a dagger from his belt, and poised it above the orc's sternum.  
  
“Knowest thou that orcs have Elvish roots?” he murmured as the point pierced the flesh. There was no blood, but the stench was dreadful as the stomach split apart. “The Dark God enslaved them, Melkor, my lord's master, and slowly changed them until they became orcs. I pondered long on what mighty sorceries Melkor used, and I always wondered – ” He rammed the knife through the orc's throat, and plunged both hands into the belly drawing out some _thing_ that Kashan stared at in horror. “why could not more be done? Why could not a man bear children?”  
  
Disbelief came down on Kashan like a rockfall. He tasted sickness at the back of his throat.  
  
“My experiments have proved unsuccessful thus far,” admitted the Mouth calmly, looking up. His eyes reflected the light like fogged glass. “They do not grow. But they will. My power grows. _He_ has promised it to me. After all, I am Sauron's heir.” He dropped the dead thing on the slab between the orc's legs. “I would have used my catamite, but he is gone, and the Elf, once he had given me enough blood, but we must all adapt to circumstances, must we not?” He was still smiling. Kashan stared at him and saw vileness beyond measure, madness so deep that it looked on the world and bent it. It would boot nothing to protest insanity. The Mouth saw only what he wanted to. And he was seeing... _what was he seeing..._? The pale eyes slid over him like a tongue, and Kashan, lifted on a breaking storm of unbelief, mouthed, _No. No._  
  
“Thou art young and strong.” He stepped closer. “A fine officer, but there are others who can take on thy duties. This is...very _important_. As thou didst note, we have no women now.”  
  
Kashan threw himself backward, terror like a thunderclap in his blood. He felt armoured bodies, thick arms catching at him, and kicked back viciously, reflexively, heard a crunch, a howl.  
The sorcerer raised hands glossed with decay.  
“Even my lord never dared to do what I have done, what I will do to thee. ”  
  
Images collided behind Kashan's eyes. He saw his belly sliced open, a dead fetus placed inside it, the Mouth cutting him between his legs...He would do it with no more feeling than gutting a fish, _and wonder why it did not work._  
  
The Mouth chuckled as if he had shared a wonderful secret.  
“Bring him. But do not damage him. He is very precious.”  
Something broke in Kashan's assaulted mind. He leaped forward, dragged the dagger from the dead orc's throat, and whirled on the orcs.  
  


~~~

His feet were planted on cool grass, a green wind blew through his hair, his hands were clasped...  
 _...He was plummeting down into a pit of screams, the festering foulness of Malantur's thoughts and the deeds that had matched them as the man sought to feed his hunger, bloat his vast ego on the humiliation and agony of his victims._

There had been no time to prepare, and he was falling too fast. The filth closed over him, blocked his mouth, crawled into his eyes, seeped into his soul. He could no longer feel Vanimórë or Thranduil. He was back in the dark, where the beauty of his many surrenders, the exquisite glory of the pain-pleasure paradox had been corrupted into brutality, a vicious rutting that made him as much as the rapist, less than an animal. The destruction of his joy had hurt him in ways he could not explain. The rigid muscles of his chest ached with the desire to weep. He heard laughter as he sank deeper, suffocating, and under the scum he saw...he saw the sorcerer's mind, and his own reeled.

_No!_

_Bainalph._

A hand closed about his, pulled him up, through sweet loan, fallen leaves, clear, dark water. He broke through the liquid excrement, saw a vast, low chamber, orcs fighting, the Mouth himself.

And this was why he was here. The blood-link. Vanimórë needed it.

 _You!_ he cried, and the sorcerer turned, eyes seeking him. They flared wide in surprise.

 _You took my blood._ It seethed, hissed its rage through the man's veins, and a bright bead splashed onto his naked breast.

_It rejects you!_

The Mouth wiped at the sudden gush, stumbling back And Vanimórë, riding on the vein of Bainalph's consciousness, exploded through Carn Dûm's mists. Every cresset burned low, the fires cowered like whipped dogs. Tendrils of black flame whipped across the chamber, coiling about the Mouth, the orcs. No, not flame, Bainalph realized, an illusion of Vanimórë's hair. Within it burned two violet suns.

 _A curse Ages old lies on thee and on Carn Dûm, Malantur,_ Vanimórë pronounced, his voice driving into the rock so that it thrummed protest. _Thou hast walked into it, fool, and cannot escape it nor hide from it. And thou shalt_ die.

He walked toward the Mouth, trailing cerements of dark light. He was not there, no more than Bainalph was, but the sense of raw power scattered the orcs, and sent the sorcerer back against the slab. The fires screamed as Vanimórë passed, flinging shards of coal onto the furs.

 _Thou shalt know_ fear, _Malantur._ His eyes were too bright to look upon. _Thou wilt know_ pain. _Thou art an_ obscenity!

The man's face was a skull in the terrible light, and for a moment, Bainalph saw behind the eyes something ancient, unhuman, separated from the world only by the skin of thought.

 _Knowest thou what I am?_ Vanimórë asked contemptuously. _No? Then look!_

Another fire roared up; it filled the chamber with every colour, and its power was alien and colossal: Fos Almir. This was the vision shown to all the Elves, the algetic apotheosis of Vanimórë and Glorfindel, and one that the Mouth had not seen. He reeled away, grabbing at air, a sound rising in his throat. Only one living being remained: a young man clutching a blooded knife, and he had gone to his knees, one arm shielding his eyes.

_Kashan._

The soldier's head came up, eyes huge. Bainalph was surprised at his youthfulness.

 _Leave by the postern gate. Go south to the river. I am with the Elves. Trust me, and go._ Now!

The youth rose as if pulled up by Vanimórë's order. His face, bruised by fighting and by terror, hardened with resolve, and he ran.

 _Come, Bainalph,_ Vanimórë said. _It is enough._ and there was a wildness in his mind-tone, an edge of madness. The chamber melted like mist and Bainalph blinked surprised by the sunlight that struck winter-blue into Thranduil's eyes.

“I thank thee,” Vanimórë said courteously. “Now he will think of me, even though I am not the one who will face him, which may be useful.” But his voice was tight, his eyes unearthly. “King Thranduil, can you send some warriors back into Angmar?”

“For the Man you spoke to? Who is he?”

“I met him once. He wanted to serve me. Didst thou understand what was happening there, what Malantur is doing?” Without waiting for an answer he spun away. “I must speak of this before every-one.”

The king took Bainalph's arm as they followed, and he did not protest. Thank the One for the earth under his feet, for the windsong, the arch of the sky. Some of his people were waiting, Thirvain, Edenel, who proferred wine, which he gratefully accepted. Elgalad stood watching, until Vanimórë beckoned to him, held him as if he too needed comfort. And so did Bainalph, but not from Thranduil. That way was closed, and better so.

“I have discovered something,” Vanimórë said, and all of them, the Men, the Elves, the Uruk-hai, stilled, watching him. “The Mouth learned sorcery from a master, and he did enjoy his experiments. Sauron considered them harmless, since Malantur was a Man for all his unnatural lifespan.” He folded his arms. Power raged under his skin, deadly and terrible, power that could not be unleashed on Malantur, and had nowhere to go. “He must have realized he had too few women to successfully create half-orcs. He has been trying to have male orcs grow children.”

“ _What_?” Elladan said. “That is insanity!” He strode forward, his twin at his side, their expressions identical. “I do not care what horrors he perpetrates on orcs, but is he utterly mad?”

“Yes.” Vanimórë glanced over at the Uruk-hai. “Thou didst not know.” It was a statement.

Lion came to his feet. There was revulsion in his tawny eyes. If one compared him and his companions against the likes of the Mouth and Horseskull, the Uruk-hai seemed the more human. It was an unsettling thought.  
“He was doing something to the children,” Lion said on a snarl, showing the white incisors that owed nothing to Mortal blood. “That is all I knew.”

Vanimórë regarded him unwinkingly, as if reading behind the face he presented to the world, then nodded.  
“There is a young man in Carn Dûm,” he continued. “Formerly, a soldier of Mordor. I promised that if he survived the war he could serve me. But I did not returned to Mordor. Other matters occupied me.”

“A soldier of _Mordor_?” Elrohir repeated.

“The slave farms of Nurnen produced men, as well as cattle and crops.”

“Sauron _bred_ soldiers?”

“Oh, yes. He had plans.” Vanimórë looked at him ironically. “ _Men_ would have formed the core of his new army after the war, not orcs. Never mind that, now. The Mouth means to experiment on Kashan. I told him to run.”

“Will he come?” Bainalph asked. “I do not remember him. He was not among those who came to my cell.”

“He will come,” Vanimórë said simply. “I commanded him.”

“I will go,” Thranduil said. “I have seen him.” He turned away, crossed to the wood-Elves.

“The Mouth has lived thousands of years,” There was incomprehension on Elladan's face. “How can he possibly believe he can _make_ men pregnant?”

Vanimórë shook his head. “He aspires to become a Power. He thinks he will be able to do anything.”

Elrohir pitched his voice low so that it would not carry to the group of women.  
“What did you _see,_ Vanimórë? What did you all see?”

They came closer, Maeglin and Beleg joining them, Aredhel, magnificent in outrage, Bainalph, Elgalad, who laid a hand on Vanimórë's back.

Vanimórë spoke distantly, as if to disassociate himself from what he was about to say.  
“Malantur knows the workings of the body, but he was fascinated by the tales Sauron told him of the creation of orcs, and wanted to do more. And he enjoys the agony of others.” His beautiful mouth compressed in distaste. “I saw a dead orc. It was male, its stomach cut open, and a dead babe, not come to term.”

“Yes,” Bainalph said through webs of remembered horror. And there had been other things in Malantur's mind. Elgalad moved to his side, and Bainalph leaned against the strength of his comfort, clean and loving and _good._

“Are you telling me he _has_...no!” Elladan refuted. “I do _not_ believe it.”

Vanimórë lifted a hand. “No, of course not. I saw what he had done. What he planned to do to Zeva, to Bainalph, and to Kashan.”  
Elgalad's arm slipped around Vanimórë's waist, the other drew Bainalph close.  
“He took an unborn child...” His teeth snapped hard together.

“No,” Beleg whispered in revulsion.

“Do not tell them.” Vanimórë glanced toward the women. “They are the survivors, and they will have nightmares all their lives. The mother was dying.” The words came as if he had to force them painfully through solid rock. “Malantur placed the child inside the orc, and used his dark sorcery upon them both to try and make it grow. That would have been the first step. And, naturally, it did not grow. He wants to experiment with Elves and Men. He thinks it _will_ work, eventually, that there will be some miraculous...changing.” He stared north. “Darkness leaks from Angband's buried ruins, and those in the Void...they are too strong for his mind. Madness is too mild a word.”

Maeglin began to curse. He spun toward his mother, pulled her into his arms. No doubt he was thinking of might have happened to her, had the Mouth captured her.

“Yes. And not only Aredhel,” Vanimórë said bleakly. “Any of thee hadst thou been captured. Thou knowest not what he has done all his life, making men and women into _things_ who prayed for death that came too late.” He turned, taking both Elgalad and Bainalph into his arms, and Bainalph felt the deep, swift drum of his heart, the tremors that shook through his muscles.

“I saw them.” He swallowed dryly, and then wrenched himself away. “You say you have no power in Carn Dûm, but you did something to the fires.”

“I can do nothing to Malantur himself. He is protected, save from his own fear. To reach him I would need some-one in there, linked to him.”

Some-one willing to go into Carn Dûm, to put themselves at the mercy of Malantur and whatever he might do. Bainalph whirled and ran through the camp to where the wood-Elves chosen for the journey were preparing. The king swung round, and Bainalph struggled to look at him, at the fine fierceness of the face that had shaped his life.  
“How many are you taking?”

“A score.”  
Thranduil tested the edges of his blade, eyes still holding Bainalph's, who felt the flowering of heat in his loins, familiar and welcome, and as wasted as it had ever been save once. Vanimórë said from behind him, “I doubt the Mouth will send any-one, but be prepared. For anything.”

“I will go back in,” Bainalph said quickly. “We could distract him so that he would – ”

“I forbid it.” Thranduil slammed down the words.

“Bainalph,” Vanimórë said, very gently, before the prince could respond. “I would not have thee go into that sewer again. I believe thou art strong enough to face it, and return, but there are things no soul should confront. It is enough.”

“It is my choice,” Bainalph turned on him. “And did not _you_ confront it, son of Sauron?”

Vanimórë's eyes darkened. “It is part of my heritage, prince. It is not thine.”

The king's hands descended on Bainalph's shoulders. “You will do nothing more to endanger yourself.”

Needing the contact, hating that he needed it, Bainalph disengaged himself.  
“Do not,” he whispered because his throat had closed. “The Mouth has power. He may be expecting something. You saw...”

Thranduil forestalled him, two fingers gently pressed to his lips. The touch shocked him into silence.

“I go _because_ I saw,” he said, and it was in his eyes, the sickness, the loathing of such evil.

“Thranduil,” Bainalph said.

“After,” the king said. “I will talk to you, after.” And he jerked Bainalph into a shattering kiss that left the prince staring numbly at his retreating back. He lifted a hand to his flushed mouth, afraid, aroused, and suddenly _furious._ The emotion was like a clean, wild wind shredding the clinging slime of the Mouth's mind, and he was grateful for it.

~~~

Kashan's world had become a compressed place, walled by terror. He had mounted the steps before he knew it, sprinted past the womens' empty cells and flung the door open, expecting pursuit, an arrow in his back.

_No, he does not want me dead..._

_He would have cut me open..._

He plunged into the endless pour of the rain, fleeing from the images, knowing the ward would be empty save for the two guards he had posted at the postern gate, a miserable duty, but his rank did not allow for favouritism. The older men had not liked his swift promotion, and he held his position uneasily.  
Narok and Vaija came to resigned attention, water dripping from their helms.  
Pushing past them, Kashan heaved the bar up, let it fall. The narrow steps, running like a stream, vanished into gloom.  
“I have new orders. Come.” His eyes coerced, _pleaded._ He did not know whether they would question. Perhaps one of the older men would have. But they followed him mutely and, as they negotiated the stairs, Kashan was glad of it. With him gone ( _If I escape, if..._ ) the sorcerer's eyes would soon have alighted on them, for they too were young and strong.

He dared not look behind him, could hear nothing but the hiss of the rain, the slap of their feet. The steps plunged down and down, and it felt as if they were descending the same point over and over, that they would never come to the end, never leave Carn Dûm. He was on the outermost rim of panic, and fought not to slip over it, for he might fall, break a leg, and they would come for him...He remembered Hrath's rapes, the fall of Lugbúrz, and none of them had filled him with such disintegrating horror. And then he thought of the vision in the chamber, raven hair and blazing eyes.

_He said my name. He remembered._

A sob caught in his throat.

The rain quivered into thin drizzle, and stopped as if exhausted. Mist hung low over wet black rocks that sank gradually into the boggy green of the tundra. Kashan risked a glance over his shoulder, strained his hearing. Save for their breathing, it was silent.

“South,” he said, hoping the mist would lift, that they would not get lost and turn around, back toward Carn Dûm. They had no supplies, and the river was two days forced march away, but they were at least armed; Narok and Vaija bore horn bows, swords and daggers. Kashan's weapons had been removed before he entered the sorcerer's presence, as was customary, but he had the dagger, and had picked up a dropped sword as he fled the chamber. He ran on, falling into the ground-eating trot of the Mordorian infantry. They passed a stream that emptied itself into a meandering pool, and Kashan held up a hand, forcing himself to stop and drink from the infalling water. He felt the others eyes on him as they themselves drank, but they did not speak. Once, neither would he have. He listened, but still there was no sound of pursuit. Perhaps there was too much confusion, but he would not wager on it. The stakes were too high.

Suddenly his stomach heaved. He doubled over, vomiting. Perspiration sprang clammy on his brow, and he braced himself against the ground, retching.

“Sir?” Narok ventured, and then there was an arm about his shoulders, and the mouth of a leather bottle against his lips. He sipped at the mead, swallowed, nodded his thanks.

“It is nothing,” he said. “Come.”

Vaija slapped him on the back, saying nothing. But they would both be wondering, Kashan knew. He had appeared with an orc-sword and a blooded dagger, in half-armour and in panic. Stoppering the bottle, he passed it back to Narok, and drank more water, willing his stomach to settle.

“We head for the river,” he said, coming to his feet. “My orders come from the Slave of Sauron.” He had slid the sword through his belt to run, and now gripped the hilt.

“I thought he was dead,” Narok protested. “How...?”

“Listen to me, because I _will_ kill you if I have to, and believe me, you would be grateful.” He heard the harshness of his voice, saw its impact upon them. “I _saw_ him, the Slave of Sauron, heard his voice. He told me to leave Carn Dûm.”

“Kashan,” Vaija whispered, his hawk-fierce eyes gone very wide. “What happened? You look...”

“ _Listen,_ ” he said forcefully. “I was summoned to the master's chambers under the fortress. He is trying to make male orcs grow children. He said he would use me, because I am young and strong.” And he spat the horror out as if it were poison, what he had seen, what the Mouth had said, what he was certain would happen to them if they returned. When he had finished, fighting against fresh nausea, the two young men stared at one another.

“Well?” Kashan challenged. “What will you do?”

Narok was shaking his head. “I will come,” he said, and Vaija nodded. Kashan, surprised and suspicious, tilted his head. “Go then. I want you where I can see you.” Their concurrence was too quick, too easy. There should have been skepticism at the least. He could not see how he appeared to them, with the evidence of what he had seen like a wound in his eyes. They began to run, and he followed.

~~~

Elladan, Elrohir and Aredhel were telling the women of Imladris, of Carreg, Ness and Cell, of the secure beauty of the valley, the Dúnedain settlements. Vanimórë could see their pinched faces easing a little with the words, the sun, the food and rest, though there was a well of shock and pain beneath. Elgalad and Bainalph were with the wood-Elves, and Vanimórë considered them a moment. It had taken incredible courage for Bainalph to enter the Mouth's mind, and what he had seen there could never be forgotten.

 _I would that I could forget it._  
Elgalad turned, looked at him on a wave of love.

_All is well, my dear._

He wished it were. Dana's Age-old rage burned on the border of his mind, and the sun-wrath of Glorfindel.

 _It is Utumno._ Coldagnir's voice.

_I know._

_There are things no soul should confront,_ he had said. And yet, how could one not, if power allowed one to see? He bent his mind to Angmar, where Thranduil and his company raced over the tundra, their clothes rendering them almost invisible against the dim greens and browns of the land. Beyond the mist a terrified young man would, he hoped, be running south.

Was it fate? he wondered.

 _He chose well,_ came the Mother's voice, hearth-smoke and warmth and incalculable power.

 _Who did?_ he asked confusedly.

 _Eru, my bonny boy._ He felt her smile. _Passion and compassion. Thou canst not save the world, Vanimórë, but sometimes, the desire is enough. I am also debarred from acting in Angmar, but I can see. Kashan is with two other young men, and they are almost out of the mist. Malantur may try to reach them with his mind, as he did Bainalph._

_What can we do?_

_Nothing. But there is no blood-link. We must hope that the touch of Malantur's mind on Kashan will act as a goad, not a hook. Also, the Mouth is in fear, after seeing thee. He cannot concentrate._

_His mind..._ Vanimórë repeated, sickened. _That cesspool is not something thou shouldst sink thyself in either, Mother._

 _Oh,_ she said, on a strange laugh. Something brushed his cheek, fragrant with herbs, comforting as a fire on a winter night, and she quoted his own thoughts back at him in his own voice. _How can we not, if power allows us to see?_

~~~


	39. ~ So Many Streams of Fear ~

~ “What art thou thinking?”

Maeglin shook his head, looked into Beleg's tranquil eyes, who tilted his head.  
 _Come with me,_ he invited, laying a hand on Maeglin's shoulder, and guiding him away from the camp. Glancing back, Maeglin saw his mother in conversation with Elrohir, and nonetheless replied silently.  
 _I feel I somehow cheated death._ He struggled with the underlying emotion that would give him no rest. _If this old tale, this doom, is to run as it did, I believe I_ must _come before the Mouth._

The shadow of a spruce fell across Beleg's face, then as he stepped back, a slant of sun caught his eyes, burned in their rain-clear depths.  
 _Thou doth doubt thy courage,_ he stated.

There was no censure in his tone. Maeglin nodded.  
 _Morgoth threatened me with many torments. It was not even necessary. To be offered what I had always desired was enough. But not_ that _. Yes, I doubt my courage._

Beleg drew him deeper into green shade, the sharp scent of evergreens.

 _And I cannot but think that I will have to face it._

 _The future has no certainty. Thou art still punishing thyself. The Void was enough, Lómion._

 _Lómion._ Beleg called him that now, when they were alone, and Maeglin loved the sound of it spoken in the silk-and-water antique Sindarin. When Beleg kissed him he could forget, drawn into a rich, lost world. They disrobed one another hungrily, letting the clothes fall where they would, and in the shadows Beleg gleamed like a river at dusk, all silver and white, consuming him, drowning him. It was a wondrous death.

 _I should not feel for him as I do,_ Maeglin told himself after. But Beleg alone of any-one he had met in this new life, was utterly nonjudgmental. Aredhel, while loving him, did judge him (how not?) as did all the Noldor, and he judged himself no less, perhaps more. But Beleg Cúthalion, Eru-begotten, who had loved a Mortal brought to ruin by hubris, accepted him. Maeglin needed that, but he believed that Beleg's attraction to him was rooted in the similarities between himself and Túrin Turambar, and the more he considered it, the more certain he was. He feared that jealousy would burgeon once again, and dreaded it, for although he could not conceive of betraying any-one to the Mouth of Sauron, he knew that he _must_ walk the path he had walked in the First Age.

 _I will not turn traitor._

He was not in love with Beleg, had never loved Glorfindel or Idril. There was affection, there was lust, but no point did the two meet and become love. He had never experienced the emotion that blazed from Vanimórë and Elgalad, or the _Peredhil_ twins, or cracked like lightning between the king of the Greenwood and the beautiful Bainalph. As for himself, he had been able to inspire loyalty, even admiration, never love. When delicately, with difficulty he broached the subject, Beleg only smiled his ageless, mysterious smile and said, “Thou hast never loved _thyself_ enough, Lómion.”  
Now he leaned on one arm, tracing his fingers down Maeglin's breast and flank.  
“If a man or woman seeks punishment, they will find it,” he murmured. “Do not tempt doom. And do not hold thyself aloof from every-one.” Sitting up, he began to braid the streams of loose silver hair. “ _Golodhrim_ arrogance.” But his eyes smiled, and his voice was kind.

Maeglin thought of those words as he dressed and walked down to the river in the eternal northern evening. All in Imladris were blind to him, as if they truly did not see him, save the _Peredhil_ , who merely tolerated his presence. In Gondolin he had felt intimidated, concealing it with hautier, as he did now, he supposed. Here he was placeless, but his place in Gondolin had been built on consanguinity, delusion and ambition.

 _Where is my home? Where do I belong?_

Nowhere. There was nowhere for one who had done as he had. Yes, he had paid the price exacted by treachery and unhallowed sexual concourse, but his death had been at the hands of a Man, his banishment to the Void by the Valar. The Noldor had not condemned him; in their eyes, he was unforgiven.

“Dying a noble death is not the answer.”

He turned.  
“I resent thee looking into my mind as if it were a book any-one could read,” he snapped.

“I do not have to. A son who wanted to be embraced by his mother's people, and yet never felt as if he truly was, because the two whose approval he yearned for looked him askance.” Vanimórë smiled, raised a brow.

“Thou seest too much, Beleg and thee.”

“I am not the only one.” The violet eyes became opaque for a moment, as if his concentration were otherwhere, and then he said, “Dana can see what passes in Carn Dûm, though she cannot act. Fingolfin feared for his daughter, and she allowed him to go within the mists, to see as she did. Fëanor and Maglor were with him.”

Maeglin's mouth dried suddenly. To gain time he knelt, cupped water in his hands, and drank.  
“They saw what passed? They saw me?”

“Yes.” Then, _Fëanor said he would accept thee in New Cuiviénen, for thy mother's sake, but Fingolfin will not allow his rule to be tested._

“For my mother, but not for me.” His heart was wayward, beating with the old, dark resentment. He rose. “I will earn their trust.” His words came from between his teeth. “or die. And I think it will be the latter.”  
 _And I do not think, did the Mouth capture me and violate me as thou hast described, that I could withstand it._

 _Nor could I,_ Vanimórë responded unexpectedly, and laid a hand on his shoulder. _But none of us know how this tale will weave itself. Open thy heart, and hope._

 _Hope?_ Maeglin felt his mouth pull taut. _For what? For Beleg to die again at the hands of the Man he loves, That I will find the courage to endure monstrous torture and die before I betray Imladris?_ He stifled harsh laughter. _For Beleg to love Túrin, and know he will die as all Men die, even if he brings down the Mouth?_ He moved closer to Vanimórë. _Even if we all survive, that fact is inescapable, unalterable. Why should Beleg lose his heartsong? Tuor lives in Valinor, and what did he ever do? He fought for Gondolin; so did many who died, but because he was pure and uncorrupted in the eyes of the Valar and the Gondolindhrim, he wed Idril, escaped the ruin, and lives immortal._ Why?

He found himself within the ambit of Vanimórë's arms. It was a strange and comforting feeling, reminding him of his father, before the latter had withdrawn his affection, looked with mistrust on the son who so clearly leaned toward his mother's kin.  
 _Beleg deserves more. Túrin deserves more. And I –_

Vanimórë drew back, placed one finger over Maeglin's lips.  
 _I saw the Everlasting Dark. No human being deserves that._

 _Until the Noldor forgive me,_ Maeglin said, relentlessly bitter, _I am unforgiven._

~~~

The mist smoked, glowed golden and the young men burst into sunlight. So swift was the transition that they came to a startled halt. The flat land, morose and grim a moment before, smiled under the sun. Water sparkled back at a blue sky, mosses glowed green. Narok muttered something, and bent to catch his breath.

 _We are all out of condition._ Kashan glanced back. The fog rose in a wall. He felt as if he could plunge his hand into it, grasp it like wet wool.

“We have to go on,” he said tightly.

“Shall we drink first?” Vaija pointed to a rill. Kashan nodded and they went down on their knees, scooping water. Kashan was almost grateful for his tiredness; it allowed him to think of his aching legs and labouring lungs rather than of what he had seen in the fortress. Narok passed the mead around again, swatting at midges. Removing his helm, he wiped his forehead, and said tonelessly, “We have no food.”

Kashan pushed himself back to his feet.  
“We can do without food for a few days if we must. Go on.”

“You can trust us, Kashan,” Vaija said. “We all knew the Master was practicing dark sorcery.”

Can _I trust them? Perhaps they seek to lull me, thinking they can overpower me and thus be rewarded._

 _I shall reward thee, if thou wilt bring them and thyself back to me._

The voiceless voice oozed into his mind like cold black oil. Sweat that owed nothing to exertion erupted on his flesh.

 _No._

“Kashan?”

 _Bring them back to me, young one. I will reward thee, give thee all thou hast ever dreamed of._ The words came sick and sweet as poison, then exploded violently into a threatening scream that flayed Kashan's nerves to bloody ribbons. _Or make thee live in horror unimaginable._

His mind flooded. He saw himself used, twisted, forced into a monster that yet lived, insane and agonized. His spirit recoiled, tried to flee, and the Mouth wrenched it back, crushing it into his broken body. The world dwindled, the sun pinched out. He was crawling to the feet of his master, unable to speak, grunting, his breath coming hard and shallow with effort. Then he, the thing he had become, started to choke. There was no air. White sparks burst in the darkness as he suffocated, his hands scraped on damp stone.

 _No._ Please!

 _Kashan._ The voice was richer, older, and far more powerful, a voice out of the past, when there was hope. As if at the bottom of a black well, he saw Vanimórë reach out a hand. He made a constricted sound – and caught it.

Then he found air, and it tasted of moss and earth. Hands pulled at him, and Narok's face eased out of the nightmare, his lips moving. The sound swelled and grew.  
“...are you _doing?_ ”

He gagged. They raised him, and he fought. A fist caught him in the jaw, and Vaija hissed, “ _This_ way. You were going _back!_ ”

The sun broke over him again , and he was half-running, hands supporting his arms, dizzy, breathless. The warmth pouring down like hot wine. It cleared his head a little, eased the cold sickness.  
“He was in my mind.” The words came chopped and shaking. “Go on. You have to leave me.”

“No,” Narok said simply.

“It is a damned _order_.”

“Just run,” Vaija told him grimly. Both of them looked terrified, as if their minds had caught the edges of his horror.  
He forced his legs to move, trying to concentrate on the spongy turf under his boots. Behind him there was a pit, and something crawled out of it, reaching its hands toward him. He dug his heels into the earth, shook Narok and Vaija off, and drew his dagger. They whirled, swords sliding into their hands.

“He wants me to bring you back to him. I do not know...how to fight him. Go on. Get to the river.”

Instead, Narok turned on Vaija, his blade stabbing forward in a vicious cut. Vaija, startled, moved so that the steel shrieked along his breastplate, and retaliated. Their lips curled back in animalistic snarls, and their eyes were black.

“Put up!” Kashan cried.

Summoning all his strength into a core of force, he swept his sword up between them, beating back their own. He knew how to disarm them, even kill them, and now it came to it, he did not want to. But they turned on him, scarce human, and he found himself fighting as never in his life with sword and dagger both while they smiled terribly, and the sorcerer's voice spilled viscid and foul from their lips.

“Vanimórë will find you!” he gasped desperately over the ring of steel, the vile pour of threats. And the words came as _his_ had, in that bloody chamber, burning Kashan's lips with the tinge of power. “Thou shalt know fear. Thou wilt know pain.”

Their faces changed, going slack with panic, but they spat back in unsettling duet: “He cannot hurt me, fool. The Dark God protects his servants. I do his will. I do my will. Kill the traitor, and return!”

“Narok, Vaija! If you return you will beg him for death!” He spun out of range. “He lies. He will break you both!”

He did not know if something in his voice reached through their possession, or the lingering echo of Vanimórë's threat, but they hesitated, panting.

“He will keep you alive, rip you open as he did the orc. He is _mad._ ” And he knew the horror was a shout in his eyes. “I will kill you rather than let you go back to that!”

In the heartbeat as they listened, he flicked out with his sword, opening a cut on both their cheekbones. The unexpected pain dragged small, startled cries from their throats. Kashan watched, wary, unbelieving, as the presence drained from their eyes like water, and he found himself facing two frightened young men. They did not speak at all. They ran as if whips of fire chased them.

 _Why?_ Kashan wondered. _Why did he let them go?_

~~~

The river ran cold, muscling around worn boulders furred with moss and lichen, over fallen branches gone pulpy with the constant wash of water. Bainalph did not feel the chill as he bathed, letting the water soothe the last of his bruises, and sat among the ferns. He had not slept, his mind drawn to the north as iron is drawn to a lodestone, not to the monster in his dank fortress, but the king running toward the haunted fog. He swung between fear and anger, and anger was the more desirable emotion.

 _I want to go home,_ he rested his head on his knees. _To the dark yews and tall beeches of Alphgarth, to the sunny glades and the song of the Forest river. I want everything to be as it was, because then, at least there was solid ground under my feet._

Now...?

He felt the light brush of a question against his mind, and raised his head, inviting Elgalad to join him. They sat in companionable silence until Elgalad turned to him, and the expression in his eyes dislodged something inside Bainalph's soul. He quivered, said, “He is the most arbitrary, infuriating...and all I want is for him to come back safely so that I can spurn him!”

“He will come b-back.” Elgalad said with calm certainty. “And wilt thou spurn h-him?”

“I have my own pride.” He stared at the glinting water. “So yes, I will spurn him, I must. If he gives me the opportunity.”

And he doubted his ability to resist. If Thranduil tried to force him, he would surrender and after, he would detest himself. He shook his head. Elgalad's hand closed on his arm, and Bainalph looked up.  
“I do not even understand why he came,” he whispered. “Oh, I know he _had_ to, if he knew. We are bound, but it would not have astonished me had he ignored it. He wanted me dead.”

Elgalad swallowed an exclamation.  
“Is that wh-what he said?”

Bainalph made a gesture that tried for insouciance, and failed.  
“A long time ago, after...that night.” He had never told any-one before. “And now the queen is returning. He will invite me to the halls, visit Alphgarth with her. I will be gracious because she deserves it, and – ” He lowered his voice. “Did he want me to live so I would not escape one scintilla of his despite?”

“He does n-not hate thee.”

Bainalph smiled mirthlessly. “It is so easy to talk to you. It always was, I think because you were never truly of the Great Wood. You could never be bound because you were already bound to Vanimórë. He is so powerful.” And there was an awful emptiness in him, but it was not malicious or crooked; Bainalph had felt it as a need to love and be loved. Yet in such a man was that not dangerous enough? “He could put out the sun with a word.”

“I do not fear h-him.” The words came gentle, filled with love. “I fear _for_ him.”

“Because of his heritage?” He remembered Vanimórë's words. “Because of what he could become?”

“No. Never that. Because h-he hates himself. And I think Thranduil h-has always hated himself – ” Elgalad pushed the loose white hair back over Bainalph's shoulders. “For l-loving thee, for finding thee too late.”

“You have changed,” the prince whispered, calmed and roused both by the touch. “You were always waiting for him.”

“Just as th-thou hast always waited for Thranduil. I am still w-waiting. We both are.”  
Elgalad kissed him on the mouth, like rain and honey, from a place where nothing existed but love.

~~~

Their second wind had run itself out in the unfailing evening. It felt increasingly as if Kashan were slogging through mud on legs forged from lead. Almost as one, they stopped, sucking in air, staring back toward the mist, far behind them, not far enough. Nothing moved, and they sank to their knees, scooping water from a stream, brushing tiredly at biting flies. Their stomachs were hollow, but there was nothing to eat, and they were too tired to hunt, so filled their bellies with water, ducking their heads and scrubbing away the sweat.

“Sleep, both of you,” Kashan said, hearing his voice smudged with the desire to close his own eyes, to simply lie down. “There is enough light for me to see if any-one comes.”

Narok shook his head. “Two of us should watch,” he protested. “If...if _he_ should possess our minds, it would be easy enough for one man to kill those who sleep.”

“And easier for two to kill one,” Vaija said. “We cannot sleep.”

“We have to rest at least.” Kashan turned from the north and stared south to the still-distant woods. “We will not reach the river until at least tomorrow evening, I would judge.”

When they came this way to hunt, their pace had been slower, and it had taken three days, but they could not run without rest or food. He was not as fit now as he had been in Mordor, an inevitable result of life in the fortress, and long, idle winters.

“Rest. Yes.” Narok sat back on his heels. Vaija flung himself prone on the turf, and Kashan rubbed his legs. There had been no further incidents, but he felt as if something were clawing at the outside of his mind, waiting for a chink to appear so that it could break it like an eggshell, enter and devour him. He fixed his mind on Vanimórë as he had seem him in power, and before in Durthang, dangerous and magnificent but not _wrong_. But every moment was a battle, and he knew he could not afford to sleep; he was in dread of what might happen if he loosened his grip.

 _So tired._

 _I cannot sleep._

He woke as if slapped across the face, sitting up confusedly, seeing Narok and Vaija who had slept where they fell. The sun was arcing higher in the sky. And then he realized what had jolted him awake: the drum of feet, the clink of armor. Rising, he blinked, whirled back.

 _He did not try to possess us, because he_ wanted us to sleep.

A shout went up from the Angmar warriors. They were far, far too close. It was a race now, blind panic shocked weariness from them, lent them speed. Arrows thwacked down into the turf at their heels, spurring them to a greater burst, like stags with wolves on their tails.

 _They will try to wound, not kill. Their orders are to take us back alive._

It was his last conscious thought. Then there was only the fleet of the ground under their feet, eyes fixed on the fringe of trees, the silvery ribbon of the river. A fragment of Kashan's mind knew they could not run like this for long, but terror knows no reason. The whistle of breath into his lungs seemed a distant thing, his body divorced from his mind, or wholly melded to it.

Run.

Blooding beating before his eyes like a red bird's wing, booted feet seeing the dips and hollows of the ground, eyes recognizing the path around a pool, an outcropping, over thin stream that passed in a wink as he launched himself across. Narok and Vaija were with him, but he felt them as a presence, could not afford the time to look at them.

 _Run because you are prey now, and if you are caught, use your dagger on yourself rather than be taken back to Carn Dûm._

Blackness pushed at the rim of his vision, the darkness of despair, of the realization that it was hopeless, of exhaustion overwhelming panic. On reflex, his hand flew to his sword hilt, reassuring himself that it was there. Like a wheel turning faster and faster, his mind repeated: _Lord Vanimórë, please, please, please..._

The ground rose in a gentle wave, crumbled steeply into a boggy pool alive with midges. The air blurred as Kashan used the momentum of his sprint to leap, landing in wet earth, slipping, pushing himself desperately to his knees, his feet. He reached out a hand, pulling Vaija forward, thrust Narok hard in the back as his lungs groped for air and his heartbeat dinned in his ears. They willed themselves on, not daring to look back.  
Then, with a grunt, Narok pitched full length. Kashan heard his fall, turned back. The young man had rolled and was clutching his ankle, teeth bared in a grimace. He shook his head, motioning with it for them to keep going, to leave him.

“No,” Kashan mouthed, and drew sword and dagger, Vaija joining him, Narok gathering himself, bracing his weight on one leg, waiting, panting, waiting as the first of the men gained the crest above them, and stopped. The leader, Trakal, a man in his thirties with a scar across his broken nose, raised a hand.

“Arrows in the legs.” His own voice sounded hoarse with tiredness, but oddly flat, and his eyes were black and empty. Kashan looked into them and saw the Mouth smiling back.

 _He is in all of them._

They were not going to be allowed to fight. He said, softly to his companions, “Now.”

They reversed their daggers.  
 _I am sorry. I wish..._

There was a whistle, a thud, and Trakal's left eye grew a long, slender arrow. With peculiar clarity, Kashan saw the white feathers quivering, then the man fell as all along the line arrows plunged into eye or throat, and they dropped in silence. Those behind them raised their shields quickly, backing. A few black arrows returned fire, but as suddenly as a flock of birds will turn and swerve as if all guided by one mind, they ran, disappearing behind the ridge. One of the dead, hanging precariously over the ledge, toppled and fell into the bog with a thick splash. Very cautiously, Kashan turned.

The Elves seemed to have come out of nowhere, but he noted how their green and brown garments bled into the colours of the land. They were wild, very beautiful, very dangerous, vivid as lightning, as fire, bright as the living Earth. Kashan stared, his body shocked into immobility as one of them stepped forward, the movement sinuous and powerful as water. Dark gold hair was drawn back from a fierce, exquisite face marked with delicately drawn lines, so that his skull seemed clasped by a predatory bird. His eyes held the glint of sun on blued steel as he regarded them curiously, yet with an eagle's sharp remoteness. His voice made the Common tongue liquid as rain.  
“We have come to take you to Vanimórë, Kashan,” he said. “I am Thranduil.”

Kashan felt his legs give way and staggered, holding himself erect by effort of will. Through a parched throat he said in the same language, “He will not give up, lord. He has been into our minds.”

The Elf nodded to show he understood. Several of his warriors had mounted the rise and were staring north, arrows on bowstrings. One of them called back something, a string of supple, silver words, which Thranduil answered.  
“And I,” he said to Kashan, “have seen into his. It is war between us now.” His eyes _burned._

An Elf came forward with a leathern bottle. It was emberwine, untasted since Mordor and the hot glow knocked Kashan into sharp alertness in a heartbeat. They could spare some time, said the Elven leader, for clearly he was, and they bound Narok's ankle, which was sprained, not broken as Kashan had feared. There was food, salted meat and dried apples and nuts, which the young men ate hungrily as the summer day opened its hot, windy eye. Narok could walk, he said, but not yet run.

“Do not worry,” Thranduil said. “You are free now, do you understand?” Lightly he touched each of their foreheads, tracing an unfamiliar pattern on their skin, and Kashan felt as if a green-scented breeze blew across his mind.  
“I will know if the Mouth touches thee.”

Suddenly, shamefully, Kashan wanted to weep.

~~~

 _Thranduil has reached them,_ Dana said.

Vanimórë released a breath. _Good,_ he replied.  
When he told Bainalph, the prince looked north with those wonderful green-gold eyes like a man preparing for a battle he knew was already lost.

~~~


	40. ~ Indifference Has No Place ~

~ Tindómion's silent conversation with his father limped to a halt as, ahead of him, Gil-galad turned his head to speak to Fingolfin. The matched profiles of two erstwhile high kings of the Noldor shone like carved pearls against the green land, and their beauty snatched at Tindómion's breath. He had not expected to see Gil-galad outside Fëanor's pavilion that morning. They had not spoken in several days, and his grandfather's eyes had laughed at them both as they exchanged greetings.  
 _Thy politesse would shame even Manwë's court,_ he teased.  
  
Such formality had been necessary in Lindon, a game then and now, a game of forbidden desire. High King and Fëanorion prince had tormented one another for an age, but here, nothing was forbidden. And still they played the game.  
  
With a hard mental shake, Tindómion regathered his thoughts. Since learning of the events in Angmar, he was conscious of shame, of his inaction here while war brewed in the North. Maglor had taken him aside to tell him of the raid on Carn Dûm, by which time his reflexive anger and fear were bootless. They were safe, but it had been a close run thing. Tindómion loved Elrond's sons, and Elgalad was dear to him. As for the others, not long ago he would have declared that Maeglin's fate was nothing to him, but indifference had no place in Finwëian nature, who loved and hated, sometimes both, but were never less than passionate. It was one of the idiosyncrasies of his bloodline that he was only now beginning to understand. As a child, Tindómion's family had been his mother, later extended by acknowledged blood-ties to Gil-galad, Elrond and Glorfindel. In New Cuiviénen, his family had become the Houses of Fëanor and Fingolfin. All save his father had died cruelly, and Maglor's life had been nothing less than torment. Tindómion's partisan anger at their fates only intensified as he grew to know them. They were people, not infamous legends, and he discovered in himself a fierce protectiveness toward them. He did not want them to suffer again. If Aredhel were to die, Fingolfin and Fëanor would grieve, to say nothing of her brothers and cousins. Maeglin was Aredhel's son, whom she loved despite his treachery. The ties between the two houses were so interwoven that it was impossible to stand apart. Tindómion, at least, found that he could not. His hands tightened on the reins, a barely perceptible movement, but his father noted it.  
  
 _Imladris does not stand alone,_ he said.  
  
 _I know._  
There was some comfort in that. The former Mouth of Sauron had dared to misuse one of Thranduil's subjects, and the wood-Elves would demand blood for blood. And still, Eryn Galen was far from Angmar.  
 _I thank thee for confiding in me._  
  
 _Father wanted me to tell thee; thou knowest of Maeglin already._  
  
The fact that he did know, when the majority of the Noldor most closely concerned with Maeglin's treachery were ignorant, troubled Tindómion. But such was the collusion of secrecy he found himself in.  
Maglor drew rein, rather abruptly. Tindómion seeing the expression of a man who had once lost every-one he loved, pulled his mount alongside, and gripped his hand. He had not concealed his thoughts well enough, or perhaps could not. His father knew what he purposed to do.  
The others turned. Fëanor rode back, his sweeping, glittering glance missing nothing.  
 _They are safe,_  
  
This was going to be difficult. It seemed impossible to hide his thoughts from either his father or grandfather.  
  
 _And if they were not?_ he asked.  
  
 _Then neither my brother nor I would be here._  
  
 _And how wouldst thou explain Maeglin to thy people, Fëanor?_  
  
 _I would not_ explain, _Istelion._ A smile flashed, fierce as his eyes. _I would_ tell _them,_ after. _Come, we cannot discuss this here._  
  
The land roughened as they rode into evening, curling gently up to wooded hills. The Orocarni, burning in the last of the light, withdrew into darkness as the sun dropped below the rim of the world, their peaks snagging the net of summer stars. They camped beside a spring, ate, sipped wine, their voices, stroked to softness, weaving between past and present. Tindómion paced slowly from the camp as his father began to sing like honey, like liquid gold, and waited – waited for Gil-galad to join him, to rest his hands on his shoulders.  
“It is difficult to avoid me now, is it not? I think that is why Fëanor invited us.”  
  
Tindómion smiled into the night.  
“Art thou still angry I did not come to thee? Was my absence even noticed in such a crowd?”  
  
“I love it when jealousy makes thee vicious,” Gil-galad said with appreciation, turning him around.  
  
“I will not let thee make me Vórimóro's rival,” Tindómion said flatly. “I fought alongside him for an Age, and now want to beat him bloody, or worse. I cannot bear to be in his company.”  
  
“I was not with him that night, _Nárya._ ” White teeth glinted. “There are,” he added. “more people in the world than he, if thou hadst not noticed.”  
  
 _I will_ not _ask. I will not..._  
“Who?”  
  
“If thou didst spend more time with me, thou wouldst know.” Starlight illuminated his face, rendering it aloof and marble-hard, like a statue found in some beautiful, ruined city. Tindómion was reminded of his face in death, and his veins ran with blood-tears of remembered grief. His amusement died.  
  
“Does it matter?” Gil-galad goaded. “Here and now?”  
  
Through the knot in his chest, Tindómion could not answer. He welcomed this new freedom, and could not understand his own behaviour, but that in some deep place he feared that this fire of Ages would gutter and die if he gave it free rein. It must be constantly fed with flirtation and jealousy, blown with winds hot and cold.  
His father advised him to look to Fëanor and Fingolfin, Maedhros and Fingon, but they had not lived the Second Age, the threat of damnation, the prying eyes, the whispers, the disgust open and veiled. Orodreth and Borniven were proof that the noxious fumes that poisoned Lindon still lingered. Save for the night of _Nost-na-Lothion,_ (the distillation of all his desires, too potent to be real) Tindómion set guards on his nature, found it difficult to show affection save to his father and mother.  
  
“Who?”  
  
Gil-galad lifted both hands, denying the question. He said, “I should bind thee, as Finrod has bound his three...brides.”  
  
As he turned away Tindómion, roused at the thought, caught at the river of unbound hair. Before he could pull, Gil-galad whirled back. There was rage in the kiss, and Tindómion broke it only to challenge: “Do it, then. Do it! Thou didst bind me long ago with naught but a look, but I am damned if I will share thee.”  
  
Breathless laughter feathered his mouth.  
“Now thou soundest like Glorfindel, and what has happened to him?”  
  
The taunt enraged him, and he knew it was meant to. He jerked Gil-galad against him, their lips and bodies striving for closer union. Two Ages of aching for this man, his touch, his body, opened within him, a core of white heat, and was answered by starfire.  
  
“Wouldst thou share me?” he whispered against the lovely column of a throat that throbbed with a pulse as frantic as his own. Gil-galad's hands pressed against his chest and held him away. He recognized the expression as Fingolfin's, when he attempted to deflect Fëanor's relentless seduction: hautier enameled over desire.  
  
“Thou knowest why Fëanor travels to Finrod?”  
  
Yes, Tindómion knew, and soon so would all the Noldor. Fëanor was publicly endorsing a shared marriage, however brief in duration, and incest. In accompanying him, so were they all.  
  
“Who comforted thee after I died, Nárya?”  
  
Bitter, startled laughter choked his throat. “Who in the Hells could have _comforted_ me? Art thou asking me if I had lovers?”  
  
Gil-galad pressed his fingers over Tindómion's mouth. He felt the touch in his loins.  
“I have wondered. There were some who cared naught for damnation, were there not?” The starry haze caught his brief smile, before he strode back to the camp.  
  
Tindómion pushed his hands into his hair cursing under his breath. He should have said something. After the Last Alliance, he had gained a reputation for being unapproachable, and few sought to breach the walls thrown up by grief, but Gil-galad could not know that unless some-one had told him.  
In the game of love, it is never wise or pleasant to be thought undesirable. Not since boyhood had Tindómion questioned his own worth, but now he wondered how he stood comparison to the reborn.  
  
One evening, he found himself alone with his uncle, the others having gone hunting. As he built a fire, he wondered if Fingolfin felt as he did, if Fëanor was so certain of his fidelity that the thought of his taking another lover never raised its head.  
He sat back on his heels as the first flames licked the wood, stared across the camp. Fingolfin had set aside his brigandine to bathe; despite Glorfindel's assurances, they were too accustomed to a violent world to undertake such a journey without arms or armour, but no hint of danger stirred the quiet evening. The horses, left to rest while the men hunted on foot, grazed peacefully, long tails flicking away the flies. Half-naked and as unconcerned as they, Fingolfin stood combing his wet hair. Tindómion might have been looking at Gil-galad, so pronounced was the familial likeness. The same jewel-bright beauty had passed to Elrond's sons, painful to see as maturity moulded their faces, one of the reasons Tindómion loved them, and feared for them. Their relationship had never troubled him, who had dreamed his father's life; he had seen it grow between them, powerful and inevitable.  
Their martial excellence was unquestionable, as was their courage, but he remembered the beautiful boys who had seen his sadness, and responded to it with the innocent pity of children, impossible to refuse. Tossing a pine-cone into the fire, he rose, brushing his hands together. He knew what he would do, and he did not think Glorfindel, who also loved the twins, would refuse to aid him. And perhaps Fingolfin, who loved his daughter, would be glad.  
  
As if he heard his name called, Fingolfin turned toward him. Under the fine, steely shield of reserve that had surely been raised in Valinor to deflect suspicion and, later, to conceal grief, Tindómion saw the man whom had challenged Morgoth. That man was glorious, and disquieting, for so had Fingon and Gil-galad stood, alone at the last, to face their deaths. Ridiculous that such a man should feel any lack in himself.  
  
“I was not sleeping,” Fingolfin said. “When my grandson and thee spoke some few nights ago. Wouldst thou speak of it?”  
  
“I am sorry we disturbed thee.” They had been out of sight, but neither had made any real effort to keep their voices down.  
  
“I know it is a game betwixt thee and Gil-galad, as betwixt Fëanor and I.” Fingolfin's smile was warmly sympathetic. “But it has become far more, for both of us.”  
  
“It was always far more for thee.”  
  
“And for thee.” Fingolfin said. “Fëanor enjoyed it, and still does. And I admit” There was a flick of amusement. “that there was – is – a thrill to it. I knew that in Tirion we risked banishment and exile at the least, but understanding that I was not enough for him, was worse than the fear of discovery.”  
  
“Is it so obvious?” _This family...! One can hide nothing from them._  
  
“Thou hast been exceedingly quiet since that night.” He took Tindómion's face in both hands, kissed him on the mouth. “A foolish fear, _last star of the House of Fëanor._ * We are proud of thee.”  
  
 _We._ Perhaps Fingolfin did not realize that he, at that moment, sounded as imperious as his half-brother.  
“Fëanor and Maglor are at one in thee,” he continued, laying a hand on Tindómion's breast. “But I think thou art also a little like me, just as Gil-galad has a touch of the Fëanorion that infuriates.”  
  
Surprising himself, Tindómion laughed. It was true; Gil-galad's taunting did resemble Fëanor's at whiles, while at times he felt himself to be engaged in the same struggle as Fingolfin, wanting to surrender, wanting to be forced into surrender? The reversal of roles angered and aroused him. In Lindon he had made the rules, or so he believed. Now those rules _had_ no rules, and were subject to change at any moment. It was...exhilarating. He stared into the blue-silver eyes, Gil-galad's eyes, fringed by thickly curling black lashes.  
“I am honoured thou wouldst think me like thee, uncle.” His voice sounded unwontedly deep, ragged. “But here I am not the only one he wants, and I do fear desire will die.”  
 _Tell me that it will not._  
  
“That old lie served by the Valar, complacently, mild as milk, but a slow poison it proved to be.” Fingolfin began to loosen Tindómion's braids. “My desire for Fëanor never faded, even in the Everlasting Dark, where I had no bodily form to rouse. We were our own gaolers, Istelion, encouraged by the Valar. But Fëanor was never caged, nor any of those he... _ignited._ ” His fingers began to separate the strands.  
“Thou couldst geld thyself. Maglor tried to. But I have never known a Fëanorion not to burn.” A smile pricked the corners of his mouth. “Nor one, however... _difficult_ who was not an obsession.”  
  
“Art thou jealous?” Tindómion needed to hear the answer, though he already knew it.  
  
“Always.” There came exasperated laughter. “I was jealous of every-one he smiled at, every man and woman who followed him, all those he loved, even his sons for a time. And when he took Glorfindel, I realized that he wanted every-one, and not only to possess their bodies, but their minds. He told me he would have all the Noldor.”  
  
“Does he not have us already?” Tindómion asked. “And do not tell me that jealousy runs all one way 'twixt he and thee.”  
  
“Fëanor,” said his half-brother ruefully, but with love rolled about the name like gold-leaf. “knows his own power too well to be jealous.”  
  
“I think he _is_ jealous of thee – and my father?”  
  
Fingolfin's hands stilled. His eyes were like swords.  
“Maglor and I found him in one another, when he was gone.”  
  
“I dreamed my father's life.” Tindómion held the star-bright gaze. “He looked for Fëanor and found part of him, but he also found _thee._ ”  
  
The tear of grass as the horses grazed seemed very loud. Fingolfin gathered handfuls of Tindómion's hair, brows raised quizzically, let it slide through his fingers.  
  
“ _Most proud and valiant of the Elven Kings of old,_ ** and still though knowest not what thou art to him.”  
  
They were speaking in whispers now, as lovers at night.  
  
“I know what I am to my brother. And what I cannot be to my brother.”  
  
It was all there: the betrayal, the abandonment, the hard love that had survived both. Fire wrapped around Tindómion's heart, flames scorched a night sky, reflected on black water, fed on the white timbers of swan-prowed ships. He stood on the somber shore of Losgar, looking through his father's eyes at Fëanor's face washed bronze by the light, nothing human in his eyes. But –  
“He loved thee even then.” And he knew he spoke truly, as if he were at that moment, not only Maglor, but Fëanor, riding the crest of madness, and still loving.  
  
“Istelion –” His name wove through the fire.  
  
“This family,” he whispered. “Both houses. I did not understand...”  
  
They stared at one another, their breath coming in pants through blushing mouths. Fingolfin's back was tense under his hands. He drew back.  
“There was _Nost-na-Lothion,_ but it is not enough,” he said with an intensity as fierce as his half-brother's. “And so I starve, and thou art like them both, yet wholly thyself...this is why I go to Finrod's land. Any excuse,” he mocked himself with a mirthless smile. “to abdicate my self control. Finrod bound his brother, and his people have to accept it.”  
  
A shiver of need racked Tindómion from head to heels. “Forgive me.”  
  
“What is there to forgive? Thou art discovering thy heritage, the blood that runs between our houses. My brother knows.”  
  
“What do I know?” asked a sonorous and unmistakable voice, very close.  
  
Fëanor's approach had been silent, but Fingolfin, turning, did not seem discomposed, despite his tousled hair, and kiss-bruised lips. There was a glitter to him, an inner battle raging behind his eyes. Tindómion looked across Fëanor's straight shoulder to where his father and Gil-galad walked side by side. The edges of all he knew had blurred impossibly. He might have been watching himself; only Maglor's black hair differentiated them.  
Fëanor laid two fingers under Tindómion's chin, gently drew his attention back.  
  
“My brother is dangerous,” he laughed. “Do I not know it?” Then, silently: _But I will not permit thee to use this as an excuse to leave us, and go to Imladris._  
  
His flesh burned under the light of those fabulous eyes that flashed, for a moment, to Fingolfin, as if sharing a private jest.  
  
 _I have two grandsons,_ Fëanor said stern now, and perilous. _One of them died in agony. I will not see thee maimed and broken by this Malantur, or whatever spirit might possess him._  
  
Tindómion set his teeth. _The both of thee would go. And I think thou wouldst not be opposed to it._ He spoke to Fingolfin, whose brows winged down.  
 _I_ have _vowed to meet Malantur if aught happens to my daughter,_ he responded. _But this is not our war, Istelion. Aredhel has made her choice. And thou art wrong. I_ am _opposed to thy going. I would not lose thee, either._  
  
 _Maglor would wish to go with thee,_ Fëanor interpolated. _To the Void with_ choice.  
  
His brother bent an ironic glance on him.  
  
 _Then he must not know,_ Tindómion said. _until after I have gone. And neither must Gil._  
  
 _I forbid it._ There was no compromise in Fëanor's tone, in his eyes. _I will not risk thee._ He traced the outline of Tindómion's mouth with his fingers. _No._ And followed it with a kiss.  
  
Gil-galad dropped a brace of pheasants near the fire. His face held an arrested expression. Maglor closed a hand over his shoulder. The calm evening burst like an overripe fruit with desire, and Tindómion thought of _Nost-na-Lothion,_ when others had kissed and caressed him, and he knew not who they were, only that he would have had any of them, all of them. He pushed his hands back through his hair, disturbed, thrilled and determined.  
  
 _And if thou art planning to ask Glorfindel,_ Fëanor said, amused and adamantine. _Thinks't thou he would aid thee and not my son, or Gil-galad? He is too fair-minded. Do not put him in an untenable position, Istelion._  
  
~~~  
  
 _Glorfindel._  
  
 _Yes. I know. Fëanor is coming here. I will have to tell him and Fingolfin, privately._  
  
Vanimórë's eyes were fixed on the northern horizon. He felt the tension in his muscles unlock as the wood-Elves appeared, flowing over the rough land, three Men with them. They were moving slowly, one of the Men limped.  
  
 _It may be better they not know the whole._  
  
 _Aredhel might speak to Fingolfin, or Coldagnir to Fëanor, the twins to Tindómion. There are very few secrets in the House of Finwë._  
  
 _I can imagine._ Vanimórë beckoned to Elgalad. “Bring wine, my dear. They will need it.” _Coldagnir?_  
  
 _Yes?_  
  
 _Do not hurry with Zeva. We will meet thee._  
  
The Balrog said, _Would the Mouth have...?_  
  
 _I think so. Sooner or later he would have grown bored. I have seen it before._  
  
 _Should I tell him?_  
  
Some-one would talk, Vanimórë knew, the women, Kashan or one of the others. They had survived something monstrous, and to speak of it would be a way of lancing the wound.  
 _If thou canst find a gentle way of doing so. Do not describe it._  
He stood in the orderly, benevolent bustle that would welcome the young soldiers, a weight of sickness on his soul. Hearth-smoke and herbs brushed his senses, the Mother's presence.  
  
 _I would like to hope his appetites and madness will kill him,_ he said, savage. _But I doubt we will be that lucky, will we?_  
  
The truly insane, if they were not tended, forgot to care for themselves, even to eat or drink, but Malantur's hunger for immortality was, and always had been, a cold kernel of reason in his soul.  
  
 _No,_ Dana said. _The powers in the Void will ensure he does not die, or not until they have made full use of him. They want him to become strong enough to house one of them. At least for a time. And he cannot die until Túrin's own destiny is fulfilled._  
  
Vanimórë snapped a deadfall, fed both halves to the fire. He did not ask Dana how she could bear to be impotent, how she could know what passed in Carn Dûm and accept it. She could not. He could not. At a sound behind him, he turned, looked into the slanted eyes of the Uruk-hai woman. She stepped back as if he had threatened her, pointed chin elevated, fear sharp in her mind.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“We want to leave,” she said, and added, “Lord.”  
  
 _Hold,_ Dana forestalled his reply. _What art thou going to do about them?_  
  
 _What am_ I _going to do?_ he demanded. _Thou knowest as well as I that they cannot live with Men._  
  
 _These two, this woman and Lion, they are the culmination of Saruman's breeding experiments,_ Dana told him. _But they have risen above their purpose. They have potential, sensibilities that should be nurtured._  
  
 _Lady –_ He struggled with temper. _I have nowhere to take them. I am a god of nothing and of no-one. For thee I will do much, so make thyself plain. Where should I take them?_  
  
 _South,_ she said. _Take them to Dale, then to Umbar as guards. Umbar is home to many races and customs._  
  
Vanimórë considered. Unlike the stern inward-looking Men of Gondor, Umbar had always been a melting-pot of races and cultures; port-cities tended to be. The Uruk-hai's exotic appearance would not raise an eyebrow in a place where diverse bloods had mingled for thousands of years. He loathed orcs, but honesty compelled him to admit that Dana spoke truly. Despite their brutal upbringing in the seething dens of Isenguard, these were more than Uruk-hai.  
  
 _Thou art not the sum of thine own upbringing, Vanimórë. Why should they be?_  
  
He cursed. She was not commanding him, simply making it impossible to refuse her. As ever.  
 _Lion took women by force. Thou, of all people, know my feelings on rapists!_  
  
Yet, while the women of Angmar refused to acknowledge Lion's presence, they remembered he had tried to be kind. He possessed empathy enough to recognize their fear, and do what he could to ameliorate it.  
  
 _Yes,_ Dana said. _The others sent to them were orcs._  
  
Vanimórë's mind winced away from the image.  
“Where art thou thinking of going?” he asked Vixen, who essayed a would-be nonchalant shrug.  
  
“Back East, Lord. There's nowhere else.”  
  
“I have a proposal I would like thee to think on,” he said, resigning himself. “I will speak to thee and thy companions soon.”  
  
“Thou art a surprising man,” Aredhel remarked beside him, when Vixen had gone.  
  
“No,” he replied. “Dana spoke to me. I do not know why I even bother to argue with her. I know better. What thinks't thou?”  
  
Her smile of wholly feminine amusement faded.  
“If we were going to kill them better we had done so at the beginning. I did not know,” she added, acute mind hunting tangentially. “that they were so afraid of us, They believe we drink their souls.”  
  
Vanimórë looked across at the wood-Elves. “Absorb them,” he said. “I have come across that belief. I thought it was a myth. Until now.”  
  
She stared at him. “It is _true_?”  
  
“Beleg,” he called.  
  
The man's lovely face was serene as he answered the question, but there was a little constraint in his voice. It had been done, he said, long ago. He did not know if it was practiced now. As he spoke, his eyes flicked to the wood-Elves.  
“The orcs – ” He made a complicated gesture with his hands, as if weaving something together. “Some of them _were_ Elves once.”  
  
Aredhel's eyes narrowed.  
“I never heard of this, even in Nan Elmoth.”  
  
“It was a way,” Beleg said. “of binging them back to us, to their kin. It was the last, the only mercy we could give them.”  
  
 _Us_ , he had said. _We_. Vanimórë stopped himself from looking into the mind and memories behind those water-grey eyes. Beleg would tell him, in time. ~~~  
  
Mordor seemed another world, an Age long gone, a memory of pain and impotence, unforgotten, unforgiven. The arrival of the young soldiers reminded Vanimórë how recent events were. He had believed his father on the threshold of triumph. Hate Sauron as he did, yet he had been the foundation stone of Vanimórë's life since the clinging mists of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. His absence was a void, and even understanding such a seemingly crooked emotional reaction did not mitigate Vanimórë's shame. He breathed carefully around unpalatable thoughts as though they were an unhealed wound. These youths had felt the same void, followed Malantur because they were bred to obey, because their lives needed a purpose. As they fell to their knees before him, he saw the black clots of horror in their minds, how close they had come to madness. The terror was numbed by fatigue now, their faces were hollow, eyes bruised. Elgalad brought the wine, and they drank with the vehemence of men who need to forget. It would send them swiftly into sleep, and now that they were free of the sorcery of Angmar, Vanimórë could guard their minds.  
  
 _But not against memory._  
  
“My Lord.” Tears bloomed in Kashan's eyes. He scrubbed at his face. “F-forgive me. I thought... I dreamed you, until... _they_ came.”  
  
“I thank thee,” Vanimórë said to Thranduil in Sindarin. The king inclined his head, went with his people. Bainalph, snow under the sun, and seemingly as cool, watched him. Thranduil paused, spoke his name. The white-haired prince, standing spear-straight, half-naked, glared at him.  
  
“I know.” They looked like frightened children, far younger than they had in Mordor. “Thou art safe now.”  
  
“He...” Kashan's face crumpled like a child's. Racking, silent sobs shook him. Vanimórë reached out, drew all three together, arms circling them.  
  
“I know,” he said again. “And he will not leave Angmar, or not yet. I will take thee far away.”  
  
They were mortified, trying to control themselves before him. It was a valiant effort, and they must be allowed to regain what dignity they could, as he well knew. More wine was offered, and they drank. He saw their eyes brighten under its influence, even as their minds clouded with the first undertow of sleep. Words came in a broken tesserae of images, bloody, black, ugly. Vanimórë did not try to stop them; they needed to expel the poison in their minds. He encouraged them until they could find no more to say, and their eyelids drooped. They were asleep even as they were laid on the dry grass, cloaks settled over them. Across them, Vanimórë met Elgalad's eyes, then he looked north.  
  
“This is not my war,” he said through his teeth. “But I am going to see that filth destroyed.”  
  
 _I should have returned to Mordor. I did not want to. I was afraid to. I wanted to begin a new life, while dragging the old one behind me like a murdered corpse. One cannot shirk one's responsibilities, these women, these boys. How many more people will I fail?_  
  
A voice in his mind, clear with the unmistakable fierce brightness of the Fëanorions, said, _Vanimórë, I need thine aid._  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * [Fanari thought of her son as the last star of the House of Fëanor.](http://efiction.esteliel.de/viewstory.php?sid=27&textsize=0&chapter=24)
> 
> ** from The Silmarillion.  
> 


	41. ~ Three Souls, Three Wounds ~

  


**When Doubts Assail The Soul.**

~ Bainalph waited for the King to return, eyes on the north where the land crawled begrudgingly toward the hidden mountains as if loathe to reach them. When Edenel offered him mead he started, then accepted the cup with a smile that strained his mouth. There were eyes on him, and though there was nothing of judgement or disapproval in those looks, he felt a cynosure. They had all seen Thranduil's farewell. It still burned on his lips. He resisted the desire to touch them. Anger bloomed again, and he welcomed it.

That kiss, and his inevitable reaction to it, at least bent his mind away from the foetid depths of the sorcerer's madness. Had the King known it would, cared enough to expose himself? Whether calculated or no, that was what he had done. His antipathy toward Bainalph was long-standing, well-known, if the root of it were not. Duty, and the protectiveness of a king toward his subjects could explain all his actions – save the kiss.  
He watched the group from Imladris; it was, at the moment, easier than facing his own folk. The twins talked with Aredhel, Maeglin's stern face imperceptibly softened as he tilted it toward Elgalad. Beleg braided his hair, responding to a quiet word from Vanimórë. They were a potent collection of people, the familial resemblance between the _Golodhrim_ striking.

Edenel said: “It is no coincidence.”

Bainalph turned. “What do you mean?”

The bard's eyes caught the light in odd, opalescent glimmers. An ink-black rim circled the pale iris, so that they appeared as river pearls set in iron. His regard was heavy, more than intense.  
“That it was they who found you, though we were so close behind.”

“I do not think anything but that black sword could have cut those chains.” Bainalph glanced at his wrists and ankles. There was no pain now, just the memory of it, of the fear that struggle would restrict his blood, blacken and rot his limbs. His shoulders tightened.

“No.” Edenel laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezed. “So it was fate that they came, that Elgalad was there, and felt you in the shadow.”

“You would have felt me.”

“Yes, or the King.” With those last words the bard told him that his binding with Thranduil was no secret, at least to him, and probably to all his people. “But that place stank of dark sorcery. It was...” He stopped. There were no words, thought Bainalph, for what it was. “As you say, we could not have freed you.”

“We will be allied to them, fighting with them.”

“Yes,” Edenel said again. Then, “Ah. There is no feud between the _Golodhrim_ and the _Ithiledhil_ * I fought in Mordor.”

“I know.” Bainalph said. Edenel had lead his clan, and returned. There had not been many losses, it was said, far fewer than the among the Silvans who had charged bravely into Sauron's heavily armed legions on Dagorlad.

“They are not our enemy.” He gestured with his head toward the north. “That is.” Like a shiver of wind, pain crossed his features. “I feel what he did to you. And I heard the screams of those long dead. Whatever you need from me, from us, we will give you. Loyalty is the least of it, my prince.”

Bainalph was unable to speak. He felt a fierce gratitude for Edenel, and all his people. They had given him strength through Thranduil's enduring hatred, and would help him overcome his imprisonment. And he was relieved, if surprised. Edenel had the authority to speak for the Gwaith-en-Ithilvorn.** They were not like the Sindar, nor the Silvans. Brilliant, even frightening warriors, they were also strange...unknown. Nominally, they had come under Cualph's lordship, yet remained a people apart. Bainalph had won their fealty, going into places his father would not, but until now he been uncertain whether they would fight alongside _Golodhrim._ He had made assumptions.  
The Sindar clung to Doriath, the Silvan tribes who had dealings with the _Golodhrim_ called them arrogant at the least. The _Ithiledhil_ never spoke of their past. Their songs resonated with pain, told of darkness, wandering, were beautiful – and carried a vein of chilling hate. But a hate not directed at the _Golodhrim._

Bainalph did not know whence the _Ithiledhil_ came. He guessed they were descended from those Elves who had never made the Great Journey. Perhaps the tumults of lost Ages had pushed them West to come at last to the Greenwood. One did not ask. The past held pain, and if it could not be forgotten, at least they need not speak of it. They were a tall folk, tall as the Iathrim Sindar, moon-pale, as if all pigment had been leached from their hair and eyes. In contrast, and unnaturally, their brows and lashes were dark. Another mystery.

“Thank-you.” Bainalph rubbed the back of his neck, felt the stiffness of tension.

Edenel laid his hands on Bainalph's shoulders, pressed down hard on taut muscle. The pain was intense, but gradually ebbed. “Yes, there will be some who will object.”

_And I should be one of them._

Bainalph had been raised to regard the _Golodhrim_ , rather the Fëanorions, as murderers but unlike his father and Thranduil he had not seen the ruin of Doriath. His life was the Greenwood, and he spared the _Golodhrim_ little thought – until the Queen's death.

He gripped Edenel's wrist, let their fingers trail apart, and walked on, remembering those dark days that chased the summer into autumn's mourning rites. He had no choice but to travel to the Halls; to send condolences by proxy would be an unforgivable insult. The King's face was marble; his eyes gave one violent flash, as if he would use Bainalph to work out his grief.

_I hoped he would._

But the wall surrounding Thranduil was high, icy, mortared by anguish.

When the leaves flowered gold and red, Legolas returned. He came heavily escorted, not only by the warriors who had ridden with him on his outward journey, but a company from Imladris. Bainalph was not present, but the news that Legolas had taken Glorfindel as a lover soon reached him.

Yet it was then that changes had come. Perhaps because Thranduil saw that his son was not merely besotted by the fame and beauty of Glorfindel, he allowed Legolas to visit Alphgarth. This had not been permitted before, though the prince had spent time with the other Lords of the Wood, as was custom. The King must have thought that there was no danger of Legolas developing more than a casual interest in Bainalph, who greeted the young prince warmly, and wondered if he had been warned to keep a proper distance. Legolas certainly regarded Bainalph with curiosity, but there was no stiffness in his manner.

Legolas did not speak of Imladris at first, all-too aware, he said later, of the pitfalls. It was a difficult situation for him. For all his youth could see the political ramifications of his relationship with Glorfindel, and the potential inherent in it. Himself too familiar with the loneliness of silence, Bainalph broached the subject first. Legolas subjected him to a long blue stare as if gauging his sincerity.  
If he was not sincere he could enact it, thus he came to learn of the hidden valley of Elrond and its people. They took on depth and flesh in Legolas' recounting, and it was hard to view them with hate. Bainalph was alert for any sign of disrespect in the Imladrian treatment of the prince, but clearly there was none, and Legolas' seduction of Glorfindel could not help but evoke sympathy. So had Bainalph gone to Thranduil, as young and as wanton. But Glorfindel had not rejected Legolas.

Later came Elgalad, with his tales of a nameless _Golodh_ guardian, secrets in eyes that held them but would not lie. And so the enmity was slowly worn away, save for the old hate for the Fëanorions, part of his birthright, shouldered and fostered through childhood. But the Kinslayers were gone. The only living scion of that House was not responsible for his father's acts, and Bainalph never thought to meet any _Golodhrim_. When Thranduil chose the lords and captains for his son's escort, Alphgarth was not among them. Bainalph viewed the omission as an insult, but since he had no desire to journey to Imladris he was able to ignore the slight. Insofar as he could ignore any of the King's slights.

Because of Legolas, relations between the Wood and Imladris had, on the surface at least, grown more cordial. The prince became an ambassador in all but name, but Thranduil would not reciprocate by inviting the _Golodhrim_ into his kingdom. The matter had been brought up at council, and the Lords agreed with his judgement. The King told them that he could not be responsible for every one of his subjects, the small groups of Iathrim, the ancient tribes, feral and dangerous whose people had called the forest home before ever the _Golodhrim_ returned from the West, and Doriath was girdled by Melian's power.

“I would not test my people,” Thranduil had said to Legolas.

Bainalph did not want to either, not then or now.

_I believe the Kinslayers suffered as only tormented souls can, but I would still not wish to befriend them._

But there were bedfellows stranger even than the Fëanorions, and one of them was the son of Morgoth's mightiest servant.

He came to a halt, looked up into Vanimórë's eyes. Caught motionless by beauty, the power contained as one controls a fire, he thought of the terrible blood-borne journey back into Carn Dûm, the sorcerer reduced to terror by the vision of this man –  
And his frail barriers crumbled.  
– Maniacal laughter reverberated in his mind, poured through him, a landslide of filth. He saw the rapist, obscenities falling from his mouth as he pounded. Then another image...He could not breathe. He was choking...

Strong hands clasped his. Sauron's son drew him back from the brink.

“I know.” Vanimórë spoke gently as a father. “I too saw everything. That one, Hrath, who used thee, is held at the moment of his death.”

Bainalph was cold with the chill of Carn Dûm. He heard himself say: “There were such things about Dol Guldur: Ghouls, we called them.”

“Yes.” Icy distaste dripped from the word. “Sauron could not bind an Elf's soul to their corpse, only trap their spirits. The ghouls were Men.”

Dreadful things. Bainalph had only seen them once; skeletal shapes running among the trees, mouths agape over long teeth as they scented for blood, living or dead. The Woodsmen reported that they came from the forest to despoil graves and eat the corpses. Their eyes were mindless and that, perhaps, was the most horrific aspect of them, human become less than beast. But they could be killed easily enough, impelled as they were only by appetite. Where it was possible, the Elves burned them, but when it could not be done, they were decapitated. Even then the ghastly bodies would crawl and writhe for an obscene time until they finally stilled. The Wood ate them quickly, cleansing itself.

“It is insanity.” Bainalph braced against the nausea in his bones.

“Malantur wanted to experiment,” Vanimórë said. “To test his powers – or what he thinks are his powers – and also to punish Hrath, who took you and your blood without permission. Malantur knows Elves can die of rape.”

“Not this one. I will become the man I was.” The bravado rang hollow as brass. He was changed. No-one could emerge from such violation untouched. But he would not, could not die. Thranduil, as much as his own will, had insured that.

They walked without haste, halting by unspoken agreement at a a slumped tumble of boulders. A stand of birches blocked their view of the camp, leaves singing. Bainalph sat, his back against the lichened stone, and the sun's heat soaked into him.

“After the war,” Vanimórë's words eased into the peaceful breeze. “I planned to go south, learn what it was to be free.” His smile was ironic. “This – ” He gestured. “I never imagined.”

Bainalph liked him for the admission, and was grateful. Vanimórë knew that when one feels fragile, to speak of other matters can steady the soul. Pity, he could not endure, and this man too, would reject it.

“I hoped,” he said, and stopped himself. “The Wood was clean for the first time in so long. Legolas and Elgalad should have seen it.”

“Perhaps they will, though Legolas' path has taken him far away, and Elgalad's...” He paused. “is with me.”

Small white flowers grew at the base of the rocks. Bainalph touched them lightly.  
“Elgalad's guardian. The son of Sauron. Whom he loved. I always felt as if he was trying to prove his worth, and he did. But of course he was. You must be a terrifying example to follow.”

“I am no example to follow.” Black lashes shadowed Vanimórë's eyes. “I hoped he would learn better among his own people. But I too, sought to prove my worth.” He moved his shoulders as at a the touch of a cold wind on his back. A north wind. An east wind. “The only way I could. In battle I would stand or fall according to my skills.”

“And you stood.” Bainalph wanted to touch him, but wondered if it would be an intrusion. For all his apparent openness, there was a fierce privacy to this man. The Dark Lords had owned him. His pride was not born of arrogance, Bainalph thought, but out of utter defenselessness.

“I had my reasons. War sent me from Mordor.”

“Sometimes war took me closer to the king.” Without volition, his hand came to rest on Vanimórë's. His fingers thrummed as they did when he felt water running deep under the earth. But this was power, and it was alien to him, like a strong, unfamiliar drink.  
“I grew to hope for that.”

“Battle strips us to the bones of what we are. There is no room for pretense on the edge of the blade between life and death.” Vanimórë turned that imperious, beautiful head and his eyes sparkled over Bainalph's face. “What kind of strength must it take for a man to refuse one who would give him everything he ever desired?” There was wonder in his tone, and yearning ache. “I do not think, having once tasted it, that I could resist.”

“You could not.” He thought of Elgalad, shining in Carn Dûm, in Alphgarth.

“There is danger in giving all.” Vanimórë lifted his hand, laced their fingers, slipping both into Bainalph's hair. “Of surrendering wholly.”

“Perhaps.” He might have drunk long of that strange, powerful wine; his head felt overblown as a late summer flower. The blue sky had darkened to indigo flame. “But it is glorious.”

 _Therein lies thy power. Thou wouldst give a man_ everything. _And we will take_ everything . _We have to. Because we are not as strong as thee._

Long after, Bainalph would remember that as the warning it was, though not for him.

_The best men can be cruel. And sometimes we are cruel to those we love the most, knowing we will be forgiven._

“I do not know,” he said, sinking into soft darkness. “If I can forgive.”

_And I do not blame thee._

Somnolent, half-dreaming, Bainalph blinked. His head lay against a hard chest, the drum of the heart steady, strong. An arm held him close, and he breathed the musk-spice scent.

 _And this_ I _could never have imagined._

So close, mind unlocked by sleep, he sensed the care and honour, the carnality and power that had moulded Vanimórë into such a complex personality.

_He warded me._

Bainalph had slept as if nothing on Middle-earth or beyond it could threaten him. He had been protected by one who understood his horror, taken to a place beyond even the sleep of healing.

_A place he cannot go himself._

The thought was cold, brutal. Vanimórë forever stood alone under the onslaught of memory; his powers useless against it. There was something in that fact Bainalph knew was important, but it eluded him.

_Elgalad wants to comfort him, wants to take all the pain away. He loves Vanimórë but not, I think, mindlessly. He sees the hurt. He always did._

He tilted back his head, raised a hand to the sculpted lined of jaw and cheek above him, saw the faint smile, and turned, leaned back against Vanimórë's breast. Frail high clouds, fair-weather promises, brushed the overarching sky. Bainalph eased lower felt the erection like a bar against his buttocks. His own swelled. He moved restlessly, drawing Vanimórë's hand down to his groin.

“I am too new to power.” There was a smile in the dark voice, but regret too.

“And so you fear to take Elgalad.” Bainalph arched back at the welcome rush of lust.

“Yes, I fear it. Wanting so much, I could do harm. I give what I can.”

“I see. So you will give him pleasure and take none.” That took a degree of control very few possessed – or would want to.

“I would not say that. And there is pleasure in giving pleasure, is there not?”

“There is. But more in sharing.” He pulled away and turned, straddling Vanimórë's long legs. Power thundered past him, an unseen storm that left him untouched. Such terrifying beauty, and barriers founded in a bedrock so strong Bainalph thought no-one would breach them save Elgalad.  
Lightheaded, he said: “If you can resist Elgalad, you will resist me.”

A wry smile sparked deep in Vanimórë's eyes. “Do not think I am not flattered.  
I could pity Thranduil. Even the memory of thee must have maddened him.”

“And you and Elgalad will run mad if you persist in this restraint.” He hesitated; he trod on private ground. But he loved Elgalad, had known him for far longer than Vanimórë, and there was a shared experience between this man and himself that allowed for honesty. “I do not think you understand him.”

“I know he would do anything for me, be anything, even my slave.” This with a flash of anger that revealed a deeper well of rage burning inward, like acid eating into bronze. “He saw what I could do, what I did to the wolfs-head who would have raped and killed him.”

Elgalad had been mistakenly imprisoned for that act and, once informed, Thranduil had responded. The events had lead to Malthador's death, which had caused a susurrus of muted outrage through the Wood. Bainalph had not added his voice to it. Malthador could be cruel and vindictive. The fact that Elgalad, whom he had tortured, had asked for clemency, and the King had commuted the sentence of exile only fostered resentment. And yet – the wolfshead had been impaled and Malthador, a skilled warrior, had been not simply killed, but toyed with, mutilated; a warning of what the son of Sauron was capable of. It was not surprising that he clung to an ideal of love and innocence.

“You told him you did not want to sully him,” Bainalph said. “There _is_ a purity to Elgalad, but it is not something that can be smirched by sex. And not by you. I have felt you.”

Vanimórë blinked once. When he spoke, there was a tinge of sorrow in his voice.  
“I do not think sex besmirches any-one if it is freely shared. But dost not thou feel stained by what happened to thee?”

Bainalph flinched. He said, feeling the tightness of his chest: “I do not think I will spread it, like some contagion, to others. That is it, is it not? You do think that.” A sound half-sob, half bitter laughter broke from him. “You are wrong. I want you now, and would only find pleasure, I know it. And so would Elgalad.”

“Thou knowest little of me, prince.” Vanimórë spoke without heat, the black furnace barred once again. “In some way I feel but cannot understand, Elgalad _is_ the innocence that I lost long ago. And the more I am with him, the more certain I am that that he is far above me. He loves me. He wants me, but he does not truly _need_ me. He only thinks he does. Eru gave him to me, but for me, not for him.”

A wind-sigh of silence ran between them. Bainalph leaned forward and kissed him with compassion, and then with passion. He gasped, hot and giddy when Vanimórë broke away, held him by the shoulders. His look was iron. Bainalph held the warning stare as if it were a weight, pushing against the dreadful certainty in it. The Dark Lords had not broken Vanimórë, but they had marked him indelibly. He felt he was unworthy of love. And because Bainalph had struggled with that feeling after Thranduil's rejection, and now knew what it was like to be used like an object, a receptacle of hate, he understood. He lifted one of the slim, dangerous hands and kissed it, saw the flicker of surprise.

“Charming.” The beautiful mouth quirked wryly. Then, with the smile gone: “Bainalph; there is something I would say to thee.”

“Say on.”

Vanimórë looked north. Bainalph knew that if he could, if he were permitted, he would break the north to swallow Carn Dûm. His form was as a hollow statue into which had been poured immense power. The blaze of it raged behind his eyes.  
“Thou hast challenged Malantur,” he said. “Do not get taken alive.”

 

“I will not.” Bainalph was cold again. “None of us will. Had I known what awaited me...if I had known...”

He was unclear how it happened, but then Vanimórë's arms were about him again, and he was murmuring soft, fierce words; they fell between kisses on Bainalph's throat, his chest, his stomach. If his words were gentle, he was not. This was not Hrath's crude violence, but a force and strength that Bainalph always responded to, that melted him, made him desperate. There was moss under him, the breeze cool against his cock, then Vanimórë's mouth closed about it, took it deep into his throat. At first he worked slowly, building the tension, the pleasure, licking, swirling. Bainalph's mind flashed down into the boiling blood of his loins. He bucked, panted, heard himself moan, as Vanimórë quickened, drawing on him harder, swifter. He pulsed as he was brought ever closer to release, beyond thought, the shadows flung from him by midnight fire, and when he burst in spasmodic shudders the sensation, too keen for pleasure, left him helpless, tossed on bright waters. A long time later, when he could speak again, Vanimórë lay beside him, propped on one arm.

“Thank-you.”

“That truly was my pleasure. I cannot give thee the _Anguish_. but another will.”

Bainalph searched his face. He trembled in delicious fear at the thought, the aftermath of orgasm. He whispered: “You will not, you mean. But you could.”

The burning eyes smiled. Gentle fingers swept down Bainalph's face. “I could, and I would enjoy it. Very much.” He sat, crossed his legs, showing himself still hard.

 _So much control. Too much, He needs to lose that._  
But whom could bring one like him to the _Anguish_?  
Before he could speak, Vanimórë said, “Bainalph, Eryn Galen has declared war on Angmar, but Malantur will not be destroyed until his appointed time. Even then, there is doubt. Nothing is ever certain. It would be wise for thee to make Imladris thy base.”

The valley was this side of the Towers of Mist. Bainalph knew that logistically it would be far easier to maintain a supply-chain.

“Thranduil would listen to such a suggestion from thee.”

“He will have thought of it himself.”

“Of course. And rejected it. He is a proud man.”

“Proud, not foolish.”

Vanimórë laughed at him, teasing, winked. “Is he not, beauty?” And despite himself, Bainalph found that he was smiling back.  
“Thank-you,” he said. “For this. For helping me.”

“Thou art delightful, a beautiful white peach. I could devour thee.” Vanimórë leaned over, kissed him. Bainalph tasted his own essence.  
“You did.”

“And still thou hast left me wanting more.” He rose lithely, and walked away northward, the sun shimmering on his raven hair.

 _He is all dark light,_ Bainalph thought, and watched him, the long, sure, arrogant stride, a king without a kingdom, a god who desired no worship.

 _Vanimórë. Elgalad. Beleg._ Thranduil. _Nothing is certain, he said. Nothing._

Only war. Only death. Only pain.

He watched the north.

~~~

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Gwaith-en-Ithilvorn: People of the Black Moon.  
> The same people I have written in A Blood-dark Northern Star.
> 
> ** Ithiledhel - Moon Elf (Singular).
> 
> The ghouls mentioned here, are not zombies.  
> Merriam Webster defines a ghoul as _a legendary evil being that robs graves and feeds on corpses._
> 
> Edenel - New Star. I changed Elchyl's name simply because its meaning is more appropriate. As always, I used Darth Fingon's Sindarin name generator.


	42. ~ Evermore. Nevermore ~

****

~ Evermore. Nevermore. ~ 

~ “I have seen him before,” Edenel said. “Vanimórë. I was close by when he was captured.” 

“I did n-not know that.” 

Elgalad had come to sit with Alphgarth in the long evening. There was nothing in his manner to suggest Bainalph's interlude with Vanimórë troubled him, but the sexual freedom of the wood-Elves did not preclude feelings of jealousy, and Bainalph was conscious of uneasy guilt. The bond between Elgalad and Vanimórë was deeper than love; the power that Bainalph had felt in Sauron's son, which which held the potential for such titanic destruction was, in some arcane way, tamed and reined by Elgalad. 

“You spoke of your guardian's eyes more than once,” Edenel smiled. Elgalad returned it a whit ruefully, as if remembering his younger self's indiscretion, unable to keep entirely silent about the one he loved. And who could blame him? Vanimórë possessed all the shifting dark brilliance of a black opal, endlessly fascinating.  
  
 _And you are so different, Elgalad. Like a pool of silver, calm and shining. So much kindness, but with depths he does not know, for all his intelligence and power._  
  
Edenel worked oil into his harness methodically, continued: “He wore a full-face helm, so I did not see his eyes, but the news soon ran through the army that we had an Elven prisoner of war. His appearance was spoken of, and there was much speculation. It was said he was a _Golodh_ enslaved by Gorthaur, though no-one knew how.” His gaze passed over Bainalph, confirming that he knew of Vanimórë, and accepted it. 

The camp was quiet, without fires. At times there came the muted murmur of talk as they waited, waited. One knot of tension had loosened in Bainalph's chest, another wound itself tighter.  
  
 _“I will talk to you, after,”_ Thranduil had said.  
  
 _And what does he have to say to me?_  
  
Returning to his people, Bainalph had told them of Vanimórë's words concerning the undead Hrath, his warning that no-one should be caught alive. Gwaewind, overseeing Thranduil's warriors in his absence, joined them. This was no war-council, but it concerned every-one, and all the Greenwood drew closer to listen. Bainalph did not mention Vanimórë's suggestion that they use Imladris as their base, but none of those present were tyros, and they would think of it sooner or later. Imladris was bound to this new war with Angmar, but it had no army to speak of. Well nigh all the _Golodhrim_ had left, taken the long journey East to their New Cuiviénen to be with long-sundered kin. 

_Was it fate that I was captured?_ he wondered. _To bring an army here, to ensure the war spins out until Túrin can meet the sorcerer, or whatever possesses him? Are we now enmeshed in this doom?_

It did not matter. Blood called for blood, even if he himself could not bring down Malantur. 

“If the dark powers use the sorcerer as a conduit,” he said into the quiet, “We will face something more terrible than the Úlairi. And we cannot know what they will do. But this I do know: we have battled the Shadows; some of you stood on the slopes of Orodruin. The courage of the folk of the Wood has never been in question, and never will be.” 

Thirvain gave one curt nod. Bainalph had no doubts of her. She felt, wrongly, that she had failed him, unable to follow his tracks under the mountains. Now he was returned, her thoughts were bent on vengeance. She was true, straight as an arrow. Edenel's face was expressionless, his eyes inward-looking, but he had already assured Bainalph of his folk's loyalty. Gwaewind, listened without interruption, then said: “Whatever we face, Bainalph Cualphion, we are committed, for Blood and Beauty.” And he smiled. The warriors gathered about him agreed, and came to Bainalph, laying their hands on his heart. They would go to war for him, and though he would have done the same for any of them, he felt it as a grievous responsibility. 

_Because I think Thranduil feels he_ must _do this, for honour's sake. The King's duty._

He stared into the gloom-shrouded north, followed the track of the sun. 

“I guessed your nameless 'lord' was that Elf in Mordor,” Edenel said. “And that you knew more than you said. But your silence was love and loyalty. There was no threat to the Wood. And Vanimórë fought for us at the end.” 

_He is speaking to put me at my ease, not Elgalad, to fill my silence._ Bainalph tried without success to relax his clenched muscles. _Just as Elgalad came to assure me without words that he stands my friend. Do I look so demoralized? I am, but I hoped to hide it better than this._

“Did Thranduil also guess?” he wondered. 

“I am sure he did.” Edenel's eyes were gentle on his face. “But there were more important matters. He had become king on a field of battle, lost so many.” 

_And are we going to lose so many to this foulness? And all for me? No. Not for me. I am of no importance._

“Are we ready for another war?” 

Edenel laid a hand on his. “The same war. A very old one; a war we have been fighting forever.” 

Forever. Since the first Elves walked under the ancient stars, since Morgoth's hammer came down on Middle-earth. The Ages spiralled about Bainalph, stars fell in showers. Vanimórë had said that the mountains of Angmar were remnants of the Iron Mountains, that Angband lay broken and buried beneath them. 

_Broken but not dead._

“Since Gorthaur arose in Mordor, Men and Elves, and Dwarves too have looked East.” Edenel's eyes glowed like a winter moon. “But in our oldest memories all darkness, all fear came from the North on a North wind.”  
  
Bainalph clasped his arms around his body. The night was not cold. Edenel draped a cloak over his shoulders; it smelled of pine and the honey-candle scent of gorse.  
The tainted water he had drunk in his cell had been a blessing, cushioning his awareness of the mind of the darkest god, a mind so vast that it would regard him as trivial, unworthy of notice save to be used and broken. For Powers did not die, and the Great Enemy had, it was said, poured his own essence into Arda in his attempts to shape and dominate it. 

_Like a blood-rite._

He raised his head. He had never thought of it in that way before, but blood-magic was the oldest and darkest. The most enduring. 

_And my blood is – was? – in the sorcerer, and the Man. Mine and how many others? How many threads lead to this web of darkness?_

Elgalad and Edenel put their arms about him, and held him through the waiting time.  
  


~~~

Bainalph watched as Thranduil and his warriors came leading the Men (Men? they were scarce more than boys). Their exhaustion and horror was palpable yet they tried, seeing Vanimórë, to straighten, carry themselves as soldiers. They knew him, the one they would have served under, had Sauron triumphed in the war.

Bainalph recalled his shock when he learned that Elgalad was to accompany Legolas to Imladris. The King had called his lords to council to explain the situation. Both Elgalad and the prince had been there, and though Bainalph knew that Elgalad kept secrets, he had not guessed the magnitude of them. If Vanimórë had lead legions of Men against the Wood, it would have been a far different and bloodier battle. Orcs, even the black _uruks_ of Mordor were less to be feared than highly-trained and disciplined Men.

Thranduil, whatever his own thoughts, did not leave the youngsters until they were in Vanimórë's care, whose stern face showed, for an instant guilt and fury, before it gentled into comfort. The youth's own expressions clawed mercilessly at Bainalph's memories. He held himself still as the one he had seen in Carn Dûm spoke, tears gleaming on his delicate golden face. The language was half-familiar, and it was with something of a shock that he realized he was listening to Black Speech. The coarseness he had heard in the mouths of orcs was ground fine and hard as an obsidian knife. Vanimórë answered in the same tongue, then drew the three soldiers together and held them. They wept, and tried not to. 

Thranduil spoke Bainalph's name. He heard it, felt the command on his heart, old binding and new. Inescapable. 

_I am not ready for this._

He raised his head, stared cold, mute anger to give himself time, a scrap of dignity. If he were alone with the King his resolve might be tested after that kiss. Might? would, even had there been no kiss. His path was clear in a pair of steel-blue eyes, and he could not afford to take it. But when had he ever had a choice? Thranduil had always dictated their relationship. 

“Bainalph, walk with me.” 

Still he hesitated. Any words he uttered would be audible to the warriors around them, and there was no reason for him to refuse save the truth, which he would not drag out and lay before every-one. Whether they guessed or knew as Edenel and Gwaewind seemed to, he could not do it. He had kept the secret for a long time, told only those he knew would not speak of it to others: Legolas, whom had felt his binding to Thranduil, Elgalad because he kept his own secrets. Discretion had become a habit never tested until now, when his imprisonment left him acutely vulnerable. He was afraid that he would shatter, spill his pain, and pride would not allow it.  
  
He did not look at Thranduil as they walked but his body, traitor to his mind, reacted as it ever did when in the King's presence. Once again he drank from the cup of self-despite. It tasted of shame. 

Comfort enfolded him, held him close.  
Vanimórë. He knelt near the young Men, but his head turned as Bainalph looked back. 

“You trust him?” Thranduil asked, and Bainalph said, with a little bite: “Yes. Nor am I the only one. Sire.”  
 _Do I? Yes, but I am not unaware of what he could become._

“Can one trust such power?”  
Vanimórë heard the King's response. His fine brows lifted wryly.  
“The Dark Lords and the _Belain_ * are proof enough of how great power can corrupt. Elgalad restrains him.” 

“He is a strong restraint, Sire. Do not doubt it.” 

“I do not.” On a milder note. “It would seem as if the son of my blood, and one I love as a son are both Eru's surety against misuse of power.” 

Bainalph did not want to feel pity, but the loss of Legolas and Elgalad, whom had indeed been as a foster-son, had hurt the King deeply. He raised a hand to Vanimórë. A quick smile flashed white, then he winked. Elgalad had always said his smile lit his face like fire in winter. It was true, and that wink was pure mischief, but courage too. Bainalph's own lips quivered, surprising him.

_It is one of the ways he has survived. One of the ways I have. And he knows it._

Hugging the offered comfort to him like a cloak, Bainalph turned back to the King. Thranduil's face was stony under the battle-markings that would not fade until the war ended for good or ill. As they approached the trees, he wondered if it would be wiser to remain in sight of his people who were, whether they knew it or not, effective chaperones. Thranduil took the decision from him, walking into the green shadows. The river ran loud with the cold rains washing down from the mountains. It would mute their voices if they did not shout. There was the challenge.  
  
“What do you wish to say to me, Sire?” Bainalph halted.  
  
“We need to return home.” The king did not look at him as he set down a leather pack, and opened it. “to hold council and plan this war. We will travel toward Imladris, since I also need to discuss matters with the _peredhil_ , but I wish to be back in the Wood before the Day of Souls.”  
  
Resentment collided with relief. This was the intercourse he was accustomed to. He had long ago discovered that Thranduil did not treat him with contempt when they spoke thus of war or politics. He picked his way carefully.  
“I agree. And I would advise we not return here until after _Nost na Lothion._ ” 

“We will speak of that. We will be fighting through the winters here, and have not fought so far north before.” 

Bainalph was moved to say: “Not only the winters will be difficult. Vanimórë told me of the Man who used me; what he is. Did you see it also?” 

“I did.” Thranduil's brows lowered. “You will slay it, of course.” 

“Of course,” Bainalph echoed, hollow, though he appreciated that Thranduil recognized his right to vengeance, as he had not when they fought in Carn Dûm. “But there may be other things far worse.”  
  
“There will be. But we are committed to this war. We were as soon as news came of your capture.” 

“I know.” Such was the way of the Wood. “But I think we are mere pawns in a greater game.” 

“I have never,” said the King. “been a pawn. In any-one's game. I do this for my own reasons. You are my subject.” 

Bainalph stared at him, and his blood seethed with hurt. He groped for calm.  
“We will have to make a permanent camp and supply it well. If we cannot kill the Mouth, and we cannot invest the fortress, then what can we do?” 

“We do not need to do either, though if the opportunity arises to kill the sorcerer, I mean to take it, fate be damned. The only abundant food supply is here, south of Angmar. We have to stop them hunting, starve them.” Thranduil looked up. “I intend to make it... _difficult_ for that filth and his lackeys. Let them devour one another.” 

The dark rage in his voice birthed a shiver in Bainalph's stomach. He wanted to believe it was for him, not only honour but care, and dared not. Before he could respond, Thranduil said, his tone almost formal: “Will you permit me to arm you, Prince?”  
He drew a stoppered pot and the three slim wooden sticks from the pack. The term 'arming' in the Greenwood did not apply only to the accouterments of war. The creation of the war tattoos was an ancient custom; they were drawn by one who shared battle-blood with another. Bainalph's face grew hot.  
He leaned back against the tree, drew his hair back from his face and stood motionless. At the first sure stroke on his skin he closed his eyes to escape the king's debilitating proximity, and sent his mind into the past. The birch braced him, whispered support, as another had long ago, and perhaps that was why he returned there, to his first meeting with Thranduil after their night together. Many seasons had flowered and died in the forest since then, fallen leaves adding to the drift of years.  
  
There had been movements of orcs as the Stirring came to the Wood, the creatures crossing east to west toward the mountains. They presented no threat to the forest, but there were scattered vills and remote homesteads in their path, and it was not the way of the wood-Elves to ignore their enemies. The King sent a message to Alphgarth, and Bainalph lead out his warriors to fight in the lovely, bleak land that lapped the Grey Mountains.  
  
It was early spring, a blustery dawn, the sun rising pale when he met with Thranduil's forces. The King and his lords were already engaged, pushing back the enemy and Alphgarth's arrival, slamming into the orcs left flank hastened their ragged retreat. The Elves posted sentries beyond a thick scatter of birches, tended their injured, and cleaned weapons. The orc-dead were left for the ravens that came down on the cold wind.  
  
Bainalph, walking swiftly through the copse, came breast to breast with the king, and such was his unpreparedness that he flung himself back against a tree. It held him as he breathed in the grassy scent of the king's sweat, musk, the bitter iron of orc-blood. He expected Thranduil to ignore him or brush past, to see the same loathing in those steel eyes that had flayed him when he had ridden to the Halls. But the moment between recognition and response locked itself within a fiery fist of time. The world withdrew and left them.  
Bainalph felt heat slap against him, as if the king's body were radiant. There was nothing but silence filled with thunder like the roar of a furnace. The king's hardness pressed against him, though he did not think he had moved. He tilted his head back. (and heard Thranduil say from the future: “Keep still.”).  
  
A voice called the King's name. For heartbeats he seemed not to hear it, and then, as if woken from sleep he started, turned in a motion of restrained violence. Bainalph's heart pulsed in his ears, flooded down to fill his loins. Casting a look back, Thranduil said, “Your arrival was timely. Come.”  
The crispness of his words lay frail as cat ice over another thing, rough and dark.  
Until then, Bainalph had accepted the king's repudiation of him as absolute. Thranduil did not come to Alphgarth, and such avoidance bespoke his indifference clearer than words. Braced against the tree, Bainalph closed his eyes (as he did long after in a wood south of Angmar) and tried to breath. After a few heartbeats, he collected himself, and followed to meet with the King and his Lords.  
  
In the present, Thranduil's fingers came under his chin, lifted it. He swept the wings of the fighting swan above Bainalph's brows, then curved them over his cheeks. There was a pause. Bainalph opened his eyes. The king exchanged one stick for another; each were carefully whittled into blunt points of differing fineness, and now he used a slimmer nib to draw the shafts and vanes of the wings. The pigment dried so swiftly that there was no room for error, and the King made none. He stepped back, eyes tracing over the markings, and nodded.  
“Now you are armed.” He replaced the tools and ink. “When we return I will — ”  
  
Bainalph lowered his hands, allowed his hair to fall.  
“Is it not strange that you have only ever spoken to me as if I were human when the subject was war or politics?” He heard the confusion and hurt in his voice, and could not call it back.  
Thranduil, in the process of unstopping a flask of emberwine, raised his eyes. Under his own battle markings, colour tinted his cheeks.  
“Ah, am I embarrassing you, Sire? Forgive me.” 

“Bainalph.” The weight that the king gave his name held him still, stopped his throat. “I know how ill I have treated you.” 

He had long ceased to hope for such an admission, though he had imagined it, how he would react, and all that would proceed from it. Now that the moment had come, his emotions were in another place entirely, blanked by shock. Thranduil came closer. His every movement was predatory, in war, in peace, in sex.  
  
 _I cannot respond to him._

“My marriage was a blood-binding.” He laid a hand on the tree-stem close to Bainalph's face. “Did you know? Drink” 

He had not. Such marriages were rare, and had long ceased to be necessary, but he could understand why an incomer to the Greenwood might form one. Frozen tears between his teeth, he said: “No. And had I, I would not have cared.” It was easier to deal with despite. The fiery-soft burn of the emberwine lay on the flutters in his stomach.  
  
Thranduil's lips parted in a snarl, but as at some-one or something else. Then his head dropped.  
“He told me I had to be faithful. For him, for me, all the Wood.”  
  
 _He_ could only refer to one person.  
“I know of the blood-binding, Sire.” It was hard to control the tremors. “It is — _was_ — political expediency. It has naught to do with monogamy. Such an unnatural practice would never have suited the Silvans.” 

“Political expediency. Yes.” He was trapped under the King's hot blue glare. “And my duty, my father said. He never forgave Beleg for abandoning the mother of his children, following a doom-ridden Mortal to his own death. He was not a happy man, eaten by old guilt and hate. I respected him, but I think never truly knew him.”  
The admission was a surprise.  
“He would not bind himself to the Greenwood.” Thranduil's eyes rose, stared not at Bainalph but beyond, into his past. “He felt more drawn to it and its folk than the Iathrim who had come with him, but he would not embrace the Silvan rituals himself. He was loyal to the dead. I was scarce of age, and I did not wish to wed, but what choice was there? The Wood-folk did not know us, and my father wanted bring the clans together under one King.” 

_And you were the mortar that would seal Oropher to the land._

“When I saw the woman chosen for me, I vowed that I would make her happy.” A strange, sardonic smile. “Her father demanded the binding, and mine agreed without consulting me. When I met Níniwen, the matter was already settled between them. Brégaras loved his daughter, and made it clear he would be watching to see how I bore myself as her husband, how I treated her. He was not precisely mistrustful, but he saw me more clearly than I saw myself, I think. And he had the greatest influence and power of any clan chief.” 

Bainalph said nothing. He felt the ache of strain in his jaw, saw it in the King's. 

“Níniwen and I had to love one another, or our life together would have been intolerable, but after that night with you — ” Thranduil bit at the air. “She knew, of course. ” His hand skimmed down the bark to Bainalph's shoulder. “I think she knew from the first that our marriage was hallowed only by the blood-rite.” 

“No.” Air fluttered in Bainalph's throat. “You loved her. She could have ended the marriage. Do not make what you had less than it was. You insult Níniwen, and the son she bore you.” 

“I know what my marriage was.” The lean fingers tightened, and resolve crumbled like bread floating apart on water. Bainalph shivered like a nervous horse. He had trained himself to be calm in the King's presence, and now that control was falling to dust about his feet.  
“We were happy, but my father had brought us to Eryn Lasgalen to be _free_. I saw that freedom around me, but could not share it.” 

“Brégaras was Silvan. Do you tell me that he forbade you the Silvan rituals?”  
It was unheard of, if true. 

“Not in words. But the situation was delicate.” Thranduil's free hand sketched the air. “We came out of the West, kin but strangers to a land that had never known a king or queen, whose people were tribal, holding to old beliefs and rites that even the Iathrim found strange and dark. We came in time to avert a slaughter. Our weapons were better, and so Brégaras and his tribe were in our debt. And that is an uncomfortable place to be.” 

Bainalph's pulse thundered under the King's hand, the deep scorch of his eyes. 

“Then,” Thranduil continued, “My father spoke of unity, the old analogy: that separate fingers can be easily broken, but that when those fingers clench into a fist then one has strength. It was true and the Silvans knew it, but each tribe was proud, unwilling to be ruled, and they had long survived without a king. We, the incomers, had to prove ourselves more than once, both in battle and in how we comported ourselves among the Silvans. Any hint that we considered ourselves superior would have been fatal. But of course we believed we were at first, just as the _Golodhrim_ considered that they were higher than any-one who had not seen Valinor, and some wanted their own lordships. Your father was one.” 

“Yes, and Alphgarth was my mother's doing.” Uirephíl had lead her husband to the north-west of the Wood, where the Ladywell, imprint of the Mother's footsteps, sprang up, and where Melian too, had walked. The Silvans and the _Gwaith-en-Ithilvorn_ already dwelt there. Whatever they saw in Uirephíl, they accepted she and Cualph, though Bainalph came to understand that it was his mother they revered. 

“Uirephíl was remarkable. But neither she nor Cualph bound themselves to their realm. That was left for you.” 

“I was very willing.” Bainalph let his teeth show. A fire-spark fanned and blossomed white in the King's eyes.  
“I would have been willing,” he snapped. “Instead, flanked by my father and Brégaras, whom had lost all his kin save one daughter, I saw only one way that I could prove myself worthy.” 

“You made yourself a living sacrifice.” Finally Bainalph understood. “ _That_ was your true binding.” 

The flame swept hot, furious across the deep blue.  
“If there was no freedom for me I would embrace imprisonment, and resent every heartbeat of it.” Thranduil ground the words into splinters. “Can you imagine how much I hated myself for resenting my marriage? I poured my soul into it, and under the love lay rage. And then you came. My...yes my living _sacrifice_ meant naught to you. You simply looked at me, _chose_ me, and came to me as one certain of his welcome.” 

“I was.” Bainalph heard the throatiness in his voice. 

Silence, save for the breathing of the trees as a warm wind combed their canopy, raced toward the west. 

“I thought I was a man of honour until that night. The truth was I had not been tested. All my years of fidelity proved bootless.” The King's hand curled through Bainalph's hair, cupped the nape of his neck, and everything within him melted. He strove against his undoing.  
“And for that, you wished me dead.” 

Such words, the wounds they leave, cannot be unsaid, cannot be forgotten. 

“That was cruel.” Bainalph said, and Thranduil turned his head away. “And I _would_ have died save that I was bound to you, and had a prince's duty to Alphgarth.” 

“I know. I _know._ ” The king looked back. 

“It is a pain that never fades, until almost we forget what life was without it. Every skirmish, every battle, a part of me tried to die — and could not.” He was pleased that his voice was yet steady, rage strengthening a lifetime of hurt. 

The king flung himself away, stood under the moving pattern of light-and-shade. He covered his face with his hands, then dropped them, lifted his head toward the leaf-fretted sky.  
“Do you know why Níniwen followed the call into the West when she died, when so few Silvan Elves ever have?” 

“No.” Because he had not, had assumed her one of the Houseless for a long time. 

“No-one ever came back, save Glorfindel, and he was Amanyar. I think she wanted to release me. She knew that even if she dissolved our marriage, my sense of honor — what was left of it — would shackle me.” Thranduil's laughter was harsh. “I could not believe what you had given me, what I had done. I had not understood what I wanted. It shocked me. One look from you...” 

_Not one look, Thranduil, but many that passed between us, all of them promising ecstasy. And it was. It was._

“How could I hate my wife?” the King demanded, bright and furious. “She bound herself as tightly as I, and for the same reasons. She had her own pride, and proved herself as dedicated as I. But the hate had to go somewhere.” 

“Of course.” 

“Not you. I never hated you.” 

Bainalph almost laughed, but such laughter would too easily break into tears. 

“I hated myself. I had to avoid you.” The straying light burned Thranduil's hair to dark, liquid gold, the massy richness beginning to shrug free of its bindings. Elven hair was notoriously hard to braid, hence the complexity of the plaits created to hold it. Bainalph remembered the feel of it on his damp, hot skin, and set his teeth. If this was how Vanimórë felt in Elgalad's presence, then he envied Sauron's son only his strength of will. 

“I was like a man who escapes from thralldom, and thinks himself free only to be recaptured. You gave me everything I had never known I wanted in one night.” 

“Your _pride_ bound you.” Bainalph could not speak in more than a whisper. “What did you think I wanted, to replace your wife? Did you think that I, barely more than a child, had such a high opinion of myself?” 

“I forgot how young you were.” Thranduil's eyes traced his face. The battle-markings burned like hot oil. “And what you wanted, or I wanted, did not matter. You had power that night, power that I could not withstand. Then after, when I truly bound myself to my realm as you had bound yourself to Alphgarth, I thought you would come to the Halls, in secret perhaps, but I would know, and — ” 

Emotions clashed in Bainalph's breast, and outrage won.  
“You thought of me as a Man's whipped pup, who returns to fawn on the one who beats him.” 

“No.” 

“This _pup_ Sire, has his pride.” He forced air past the sharp stones that lodged in his throat. “I enjoy submission, I do not enjoy being despised. You commanded me not to return to Alphgarth and I _obeyed_ you.” 

“I never despised you,” Thranduil flung at him. “Listen to me ” 

“No. You never gave me a chance to explain myself, and I was too young to challenge you. But I have earned Alphgarth and my place on your council many times over. Now _you_ will listen.” 

The King whirled away. Bainalph stared after him, then ran, seized his arm and pulled him around. And there was that in the wild eyes that caused him to drop his hand, brought him perilously close to both tears and violence: gentleness.  
Thranduil said. “Yes, speak.” 

And breathing was hard again. He struggled.  
“I did not know you had enforced monogamy upon yourself.” He stifled another deep tremor. There was pain, more perhaps, than he had known was there, and his captivity in Carn Dûm could not be healed by the king's binding. He touched his chest, where he could still feel the interlocking runes like a brand.  
“There was no need for this. What was this if not contempt for me, my choice? And I could not escape you anyhow. We were bound that one night.” Words came then like the river, a torrent. “What was the announcement at your feast if not hatred, more words calculated to wound me, to show me that your despite was still fresh, that I was forever unforgiven?” 

_Breathe. I need to breathe, and when he looks at me thus..._

“I wanted you, needed you. I...thought we could be lovers, that sometimes you would...come to me. I was young.” He panted. “You _did_ desire me that night, Thranduil. Could you not have forgiven me? I was very young, and...a fool. _I made a mistake._ ” 

“No,” Thranduil said, implacable. “No.” 

So there it was: no forgiveness, but a binding until one or the other died, and perhaps beyond, the years slowly sinking, one into the other like, mountains folding into autumn mist, fading, greying. 

_But no. I will not have it so. I will not fade, nor grow grey with the Ages and the slow, inexorable fall of grief. I never did. But perhaps that will not even be a choice._

The mossy ground buoyed his feet as he turned, not knowing where to go, needing to be alone because no-one could help him — and hand caught his hair. His febrile control snapped, and he spun back into a kiss.  
A furnace of desire. Heat on heat, and memory: A wild autumn night in Alphgarth. 

_No._

His knees weakened. Thranduil's hands cupped his buttocks, drawing him against his body, his hardness. He made a sound as they pressed together, a desperate striving. The King devoured him, and Bainalph let himself be eaten. This was no game of submission and domination such as he played in Alphgarth, this was the truth of him, as it was the truth of Thranduil. 

His back struck the turf, hands pinned behind his head. 

“You made no mistake.” The King's voice wove into the sounds of the forest, air and water, rich earth tilled age-long by tree-roots “We raised the storm that night, you and I. I took everything you had, and you gave me more, over and over. In the end nothing else existed. We were refined by lust.” 

The wind strengthened, sluiced through the birches, and Bainalph arched up into the hand that freed his cock. His breath caught hard in his throat as Thranduil moved, slid his length along it, rode against him, flesh against flesh. Tiny, delicate pieces of his soul shattered. He whimpered: “Please,” and “No.” And that was what he had said before. 

“To possess you again,” the wind said against his mouth. “To take you so far there is nothing in your eyes but me...to feel you around me, the heat, the deep clench of your tremours...hot as a fire, slick with my seed.” 

Bainalph cursed. “Do not!” 

_Do not. Yes. Take me back there._

“Did you re-live it, day upon day, every night before the Longest Day? I did. I do.” 

_Yes, damn you. I return there —_

— To slow-ebbing firelight that washed the King's body in ember and gold, his eyes gone to thundercloud-blue, merciless as he forced Bainalph further into the extremity of pleasure and pain. Madness like the fever of spider-venom rode in his veins, a need that was sated only to return tenfold. 

_A wild night._

The Day of Souls was not a celebration, and there was peril since the Shadow settled on Dol Guldur, but even long before it had been a grey time, an in-between time. When dusk came down the _Ithiledhil_ lit lamps and hung them in the trees to guide the Houseless back. The day had been quiet, misty, but with the coming of night the weather changed; ragged clouds striped the face of the moon, ghostly heralds of the approaching storm. The last tenacious leaves whirled, scattering with a mournful sound. 

Alphgarth was comfort, the draped walls absorbing the wail of the wind, but the flames danced in the hearth as Bainalph swung the steaming kettle of hot wine from the fire, and poured two cups. The somberness of the day notwithstanding, since Thranduil's arrival this storm had been gathering. And now it was breaking over them both, over the Wood. 

Bainalph escorted the King to his guest chambers, then went to his own, racked by shivers as he discarded his clothes for a house-robe. He combed out his braids, wound his hair into a loose knot. If he went to Thranduil now, he would not be turned away, and both longed for and feared what would follow.  
And what followed was... 

“You knew nothing and everything. You read me like a scroll, let me do anything, everything I wanted, needed...” 

_You enlarged my soul, so that when I offered myself as the Summer King, I was prepared._

“I tried to send you away, and could not.” 

His loins burned with need. Every stroke against him pushed him further into memory, toward release. The King need not even possess him. His back was against moss, against time-smoothed wood, as Thranduil slammed him against the chamber door, and he shameless, ravenous, curled his thighs about the King's hips to take the iron length hard, so hard, crying out in the pain, the glory of that pain. He begged for mercy, words lost against Thranduil's salty-damp skin, as he was plundered, and the pleasure rose with the pain, making him, for that time, quite mad. And when he came, he thought he died, drifted with the Houseless, and was reborn again to the same insatiable need, which Thranduil satisfied again. And again.  
He writhed, frenzied, heard himself sob.  
Again and again until speech, thought, his very identity all were driven from his mind, until he knew nothing but Thranduil, on him, inside him, demolishing every barrier to reach the white-hot core. 

“Come,” the voice of the Wood commanded him, and he did, with a choked, racked scream, feeling the rain-patter of the King's seed and his own. The orgasms came in spasms, and the tears followed. 

“When we have time,” Thranduil said ragged, a gentling wind. “I will take you there again, and purge Carn Dûm from your soul.” 

Bainalph rose, drained for a moment, languid. It would return soon, the desire, as it ever had. It was thus for all Elves, or so he supposed, the need a stream running underground, but so close to the surface it welled up at a touch, a look, a thought. He trailed his fingers through the mingled essence that pearled on his breast, and sucked his fingers, eyes on the king, whose own sparked again.  
And he said: “No.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Belain - valar (Sindarin)


	43. ~ The Shadow of Brilliance ~

~ ~ “He chose well.”  
  
Fëanor reined in. Silent, they gazed over _Sant Laer nuin Gwaith Loss_ , the pine-roughened roll of the hills, the silver fall of water into rich valleys, the Orocani that lifted their ragged crowns of snow far beyond.  
Finrod's people had begun their construction of roads and mansions but, as on Gaear Gwathluin, spacious pavilions served as dwellings until they were completed. The King's own was pitched some half-league from his palace; the royal dorsal swam above it in a desultory breeze.  
  
Watchtowers crowned the heights of the land, white spikes that loosed the silvery note of horns that announced their arrival. Two men had come to meet them. One was Edrahil, the other Celegorm, and his face was a storm.  
  
Fëanor watched him approach, and Fingolfin saw his mouth curve, then he laughed. There was no malice in it, and Fingolfin could not help but smile, but tried to repress it.  
“Thy son looks for understanding,” he chided.  
  
“He has it, thou knowest that. But Finrod bore a great weight, and was too noble for his own good. And this — I admire his sense of play, I truly do.” His eyes gleamed into Fingolfin's with irresistible charm and perilous mischief. “He steps forth from repression with a veritable _flourish_. That triad on Taniquetil must hate it, not to mention his father, who was willing to see him imprisoned, or worse.”  
  
“Finarfin,” Fingolfin turned the name in his mouth with some difficulty. “Could see no way out. He did not have thee. He did not even have me in the end, or made himself believe that.”  
  
“Thou wouldst excuse him?”  
  
“We all make our own choices, brother. All of us.” And Fëanor laid a hand on his breast and inclined his head in acknowledgement, half-ironic.  
“But all those he sought approval from failed him, until all that was left was the Valar.”  
  
“And there thou hast put thy finger on why he failed _us_ ,” Fëanor said. “Neither of us needed another's countenance.”  
  
And that was the truth. Finwë had loved them, knowing what he knew. That had been enough. Fingolfin had never sought Fëanor's approval, had never tried to impress him; he had simply desired.  
  
“I wonder,” he murmured. “Father always said he was most like Indis, the Vanyar, thus perhaps more susceptible to the Valar than we. And we were not immune to their influence.”  
  
Fëanor said, “I thought I was.” He gave Fingolfin the full force of those incandescent eyes. In them, ships burned, their light a stain of betrayal in a black sky. And Fingolfin was not willing to speak of that, not yet. His half-brother needed something to prick at his conscience. **  
  
Celegorm drew ahead of Edrahil, galloped toward his father, and drew rein, saying: “There is nothing remotely amusing about this.”  
  
“But of course there is.” Fëanor dismounted and, after a moment, Celegorm followed, went into his father's arms. The horses paced behind them as they walked toward Finrod's encampment. Celegorm looked back, and Maglor went to him, laying an arm over his shoulders.  
  
Finrod was waiting for them. His lovely smile blossomed as he bowed, then greeted them all with the kiss of kinship. Fëanor returned it unhurriedly, and Finrod did not seem discomposed. Glorfindel stood with Legolas. He came to embrace them, looked into Fingolfin's eyes and said, _We must talk, after._  
  
From Fëanor's infinitesimal pause it was clear Glorfindel had spoken to him, also. At once Fingolfin reached out to his daughter, felt her soul steel-bright as ever, and relaxed a little as he took a cup of light mead.  
  
Fëanor did not refer to the rites of the _Aran Laer_ at all. What he did do was observe the very strange and strained atmosphere between the four who were bound by it, and Fingolfin observed him.  
  
 _He would not do this. I do not think I would._  
  
As for how Finrod's people felt, that was plain enough: They loved their king, and through the powers of the rite he had chained them to him. Fingolfin thought they deserved it; there was a very Finwëan claw-swipe of revenge in Finrod's actions, and Fingolfin could not blame him. His people had turned from him.  
  
 _To this one, and his brother._  
  
Celegorm's sprawled long-limbed on the grass, but his insouciance matched ill with the glower on his brow. As Finrod spoke of the construction of his home, Celegorm's black eyes rested on him, smouldering. He noticed Fingolfin's regard and flushed. Fingolfin offered him a bland smile.  
  
Of all of the four, only Legolas seemed more at ease than Finrod, but his demeanour was not the creamy calm that possessed the king. He had changed this summer, as if throwing off a disguise worn for Glorfindel, whose brow held a faint frown. The wood-Elf, his hair loose in its fall of winter-gold, looked feral as a wild-cat that, while sleeping in the sun, is neither safe nor tame. Little wonder Glorfindel frowned.  
  
Finrod had tiled a bathing area which would be incorporated into the palace, but was now still open to the sun. The water was warmed by furnaces, and when they had been conducted around the palace, they sat there in the golden afternoon. Finrod made no overt gestures of ownership over his brides, but their binding to him shone like gold thread. If they were not deferential, (a hard thing to imagine ) they were attentive, not excepting Celegorm.  
  
 _And he needs it,_ Fingolfin thought. _He does need it; there have been too many betrayals in his life; first Celegorm, then his people, his father, Orodreth._  
  
He leaned back against the side of the pool, listened to Finrod's mellifluous voice blending with Fëanor's resonance, and felt both shame and guilt for his absent brother who had tried so hard to control his children's lives. And his own.  
  
 _Much of that was my fault._  
  
Finarfin had been afraid that the house of Finwë would be exiled from Valinor if the incestuous relationship between his full brother and half-brother were discovered. He sought to prove to the Valar, and perhaps himself, that one at least of Finwë's children was incorruptible.  
  
 _None of us are, that is the tragedy and the glory of it. We are all flawed. Even the flawless._ He glanced at Fëanor's profile, who, without looking at him, smiled.  
  


~~~

  
  
Legolas came with them when Glorfindel drew Fëanor and Fingolfin aside to speak. They walked beside a stream whose banks were lush with growth, and the smell of water-mint rose, a drowsy song in the windless gold evening. Glorfindel broke the calm with his first words, and when he had finished there was a tiny silence, fragile as blown glass. Fingolfin's hand clamped on Fëanor's forearm.  
“Aredhel said naught.”  
  
“Think'st thou she would?” Fëanor said, dry.  
  
“She is in no danger now. She will be returning to Imladris.” Glorfindel glanced at Legolas. “Malantur will find it difficult now the Folk of the Wood have declared war on him. They intend to starve him.”  
  
“And what if he leaves Carn Dûm?” Fëanor asked. “Takes battle to them? He cannot let himself be cut off.”  
  
“ _He_ will not decide anything, but whatever powers are using him might. In which case Vanimórë and I can act, at least in defence.” Glorfindel showed a grim smile. “But Malantur will know that now; he has seen Vanimórë. His mind would have to be overthrown entirely for him to leave his sanctuary.”  
  
“Hells,” Fingolfin said. “And how likely is it that he will be possessed?” Nausea lay thick in his stomach at the images Glorfindel's words had evoked.  
  
“Coldagnir is certain it will be Gothmog,” Fëanor's eyes gathered motes of fiery light at the last name.  
  
“At the end,” Glorfindel said. “This may be Túrin and Coldagnir against whatever Malantur becomes. Vanimórë thinks he and I will play little part in it.” He paused, then: “And Maeglin may feel he needs to sacrifice himself to make recompense for his betrayal of Gondolin.”  
  
Fingolfin looked at his brother, who lifted his brows. “And does he?”  
  
“The Everlasting Dark was his punishment.” Despite his words, Fingolfin heard his voice come cold as judgement. Maeglin was Aredhel's son; he would not have believed that one of his own blood would treat with Morgoth.  
  
Glorfindel stared at him. There was understanding in those ice-fire blue eyes.  
“And it is not enough for thee, is it, uncle? Nor for me. Or for him. Hear his words to Vanimórë: _'Until the Noldor forgive me, I am unforgiven.'_. It is very possible that he will deliberately place himself in a situation where he will die. And die hard.”  
  
 _Now that_ is _enough,_ Fëanor blazed, but silent now. _Get them both out of there, Glorfindel._  
  
Fingolfin turned on his half-brother. _We are walking too close to the edge already. Bring Maeglin into this new realm, and Turgon and his people will demand his death, as they have every right to._  
  
 _And Maeglin would allow it,_ Glorfindel told them.  
  
 _I am the High King._ Fëanor said, hot as liquid metal. _What are we, savages to execute traitors who have already been punished?_ He paced, restless. _We should be there._  
  
 _It is not thy war, uncle._  
  
 _If any of Noldorin blood are there, it is._  
  
 _Thou hast already forbidden Tindómion to go north, and asked me not to aid him._ Glorfindel stared back at Fëanor, who cut the air with one hand.  
 _Because he is using it as an excuse._  
  
 _Do not dismiss his motives so lightly. He was troubled about Imladris before he began to realize the..._ complications _of this family._  
  
 _I do not impugn his motives._ Fëanor folded his arms. _I am troubled myself._  
  
 _I assure you,_ Legolas spoke for the first time, and with a vein of coolness. _That the Wood does not need help._  
  
Fëanor's face lost its patina of anger. He was charmed, Fingolfin saw with a stir of uneasiness. Legolas was so different to any-one he had known; he was drawn to the wildness that had never been chained. It was like looking at a different reflection in the same mirror. And Glorfindel would not stand for Fëanor touching his lover, even if he came at last to complete acceptance of Legolas' freedom. Because Fëanor was the ultimate threat.  
  
 _Neither would I impugn the courage and skills of thy folk, Legolas._  
  
 _It is for a king to consider all his people,_ Fingolfin said, noting the angry compression of Glorfindel's mouth. _Even those who did not come with us._  
Some had stayed in Imladris because their kin remained in Tol Eressëa, others had long ties with the Teleri of Mithlond. Others would not accept any Finwion as their king, and some, like Elrond's sons, loved their home and would not leave it.  
 _And none of us could stand idle while old enemies stirred._  
  
Fëanor inclined his head. _Just so. And it eats thee, also, brother. We should talk to Maeglin._  
  
 _I could not see him in the flesh without wanting to kill him!_ Fingolfin held the fierce eyes.  
  
Fëanor took a swift step toward him, caught Fingolfin's face between his hands, and smiled like winter lightning.  
 _But thou wilt not kill him, and neither will I, my Nolofinwë. And I will be damned to the Void again before I permit that rancid madman in Carn Dûm break one who carries thy blood in his veins._  
  
Fingolfin gripped his brother's wrists, pulled away. Both of them looked at Glorfindel.  
  


~~~

  
  
Tindómion moved away from his father and Gil-galad, little on his mind but enjoyment of the summer evening, or such was the attitude he hoped to convey.  
  
 _I_ could _bring thee here,_ Vanimórë said. _Dost thou want to tell me why I should?_  
  
 _Does it matter?_ He reconsidered, balancing his father's complex hatred of this man with his own gratitude. _I need time to breathe._  
  
There came brief amusement.  
 _I can understand that. They must be stifling. Fire feeds on air._  
  
 _Or even if there is none._ And then with an explosion of passion in his breast like a storm breaking. _I cannot think of them without pain at their suffering, canst thou understand that? And yet I need peace for a while, and I cannot find it among them._  
  
Tindómion had learned to be alone, save for his mother. The only people who might comprehend his feelings were Glorfindel and Gil-galad, yet they were both too close, and had themselves yearned for the beloved dead: Glorfindel for all those he had lost, Gil-galad for the father who died when he was a youth, for Maglor, Maedhros and Caranthir who had loved him. Tindómion had never looked back until Gil-galad's death, nothing lay there but the stigma 'Fëanorion', but by then he had already learned self-sufficiency. Now, he was surrounded by kin he could not help but love and felt, as Vanimórë so aptly termed it, stifled, as if their bright, renewed blazes outshone his own. He devoutly desired consummation with the Finwions, and feared what it would do to him, a fear born of solitariness and pride. They, who longed for union, would not understand him. All of them, even Fingolfin, who battled Fëanor's magnetic pull, were at ease with one another.  
  
 _And I..._  
  
 _I do understand._ Vanimórë's mind-voice came gently. And perhaps he did, because he, too, had been essentially alone.  
  


~~~

  
  
The meal that night was informal. Finrod's household sat on cushions, ate off low tables. Torchiéres in milk-glass bowls cast a gentle light as the night deepened. Finrod had broached tuns of Eressëan wine, white, stony-dry, and soft laughter rose as his people sipped from their goblets. The king sat with his summer brides and guests, a simple circlet of silver and topaz on his brow. One might have expected that over Celegorm at least, Finrod would exhibit signs of ownership, but his hand on the reins was light. Nevertheless, there was sensuality in the air, nothing overt, but neither was it constrained or limited to the king and his consorts. Finrod's folk, from what Gil-galad could see, had shed their last fetters.  
  
 _There is a power in him._ He watched over the rim of his goblet. _A King's power over the land and his people._  
 _I never had that._  
  
He had been High King by right of birth, according to the Noldorin laws of inheritance, but the factions within his court, the fact that he had been called upon to abdicate, were bitter proof that he had never garnered the loyalty and love Finrod commanded. Yet Lindon had flourished under his rule, had stretched, at its height, from the shores of Belegaer to to the Towers of Mist, and endured longer than any other Noldorin kingdom in Middle-earth. There should be (and was) pride in that, but what a chilly, poisonous realm it had been under the glamour. Gil-galad was the sixth high king ***, and all of his predecessors had died violently. Perhaps, by the time he took the throne, the line of Finwë was known to be doomed, but rumours of the Void as a punishment for unnatural lusts had become as fact during the Second Age. Gil-galad no longer blamed his mother, a tool for Elbereth, but those who allied with her, such as Borniven, had no such excuse. Thus his court, where one might thrive only by being above suspicion of sin, if one's path was straight in accordance with Valarin Laws. And the greatest offender, the High King himself.  
  
 _If I had known how to bind myself to my land and people, I would have done it, and laughed to scorn those who spread the Valar's malice._  
  
But he had not known how to, and because he had no intention of being forced from the throne, he held to it with grim resolve and little joy.  
  
 _Well, perhaps not so little._ He looked aside to Tindómion. A strange joy that had been, unbearable and magnificent. Had been. Was.  
  
 _Now, I am king of nothing, and cannot seem even to command the loyalty of the one I love._  
  
Tindómion turned his head. Gil-galad lifted his cup and drank; their eyes met and clung.  
  
 _As that night when he walked into my court. When I_ knew. How long ago, and still, just one look...  
  
Desire came came hard with a prickling rush of heat to his groin. When he had seen Tindómion and Fingolfin together, he truly understood the strange unhallowed ties of lust between the Finwii. Fingolfin could have been himself, or his father, Tindómion might have been Maedhros or Fëanor. There were no boundaries save the ones they chose to set. Since that day Gil-galad was restless as a stag in rut. He knew why they had come. Not all was politics, indeed their very presence here was a political statement.  
  
Tindómion turned back to Legolas, his words quiet, throaty as he asked of the war in the north. Earlier, he had called for vellum and charcoal, and sketched a map showing northern Eriador, from Imladris to the Bay of Forochel.  
Legolas said, “I have never been that far north.” He pushed back a stream of pale hair, and frowned.  
Finrod reached across Glorfindel to lay a hand on his. Legolas started, looked up.  
“Thou knowest better than I that this marriage is not a prison,” Finrod said with a smile. “Wouldst thou see thy father?”  
  
Glorfindel met his brother's eyes.  
  
“I would,” Legolas said. “Glorfindel was quite right to call thee wise.”  
  
“I am learning.” Finrod rose, gathered his consorts with only a look, and said, “Come.” And he reached out a hand toward Fëanor. “Wilt thou join us, uncle?” His eyes gleamed in the dark. “All of thee?”  
  
Gil-galad came to his feet, saw Tindómion say something to his father, and kiss his cheek. His hand lingered on Maglor's shoulder before he walked away toward their guest pavilion.  
  
“And whither goest thou?” Gil-galad intercepted his path. “Thou art not, I hope, intending to decline Finrod's invitation?”  
  
Tindómion did not pause until he entered the tent. He was taut, quivering.  
“A moment,” he said, and sounded breathless. “Wait for me.”  
  
“ _Nárya_ ” Gil-galad said his name gently, traced a fingertip down his face. “Thou art over-thinking.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Gil-galad expected him to jerk away from touch and words, and the furious, unexpected kiss shocked him. He surged into it, into the hard body, and was equally startled when Tindómion broke it, panting.  
“Yes,” he said again, voice gone to rags. “And now I will have some time alone.”  
  
“Does thinking do this to thee?” Gil-galad's voice matched Tindómion's, shaken, rough. He wanted to press then, but a whisper of caution breathed across his mind. “Then think on this.” He swung round, back into another urgent, embattled kiss. Their hands clutched, dug into muscle, raked over cloth.  
 _I can never get enough of this man. So much time to make up for..._  
This time, he broke away, whispered, because his breath came in gasps: “When I saw thee with Fingolfin, I wanted to watch, and then join thee.”  
  
Tindómion's eyes were liquid silver.  
“And were I not Fëanor's grandson, Maglor's son, wouldst thou yet want me?”  
  
Gil-galad wanted to laugh, to wrestle Tindómion to the ground there and then, and take him.  
“I love all that thou art. I cannot imagine thee as anything but _thee_. Thou didst carry the blood and fire of Fëanor into an age that sorely needed it. And thou didst hold that torch until it came again, but thou art not diminished. Oh yes, I know thee, _Nárya_.”  
  
The mood was strange now, his words had gentled it into melancholy. The desire was still there, and could be fanned at no more than a look, but Tindómion's kiss had been a promise, and the night lay ahead. A long glance back, and he left.  
  


~~~

  
  
“I would not so easily have left such a night as was promised thee.” Vanimórë steadied Tindómion. The transition across distances was not difficult — he had talked of it with Glorfindel; the easiest way of explaining it, was to draw two points on a piece of vellum, one at each end; they were far apart, but if one folded the sheet, they came together. The only disorientation was finding oneself in a new place.  
  
It was still evening this far north. Tindómion's eyes widened and blinked, then he said: “My thanks,” and stepped away. He was dressed in hunting-gear, a sword at his waist and dagger in thigh sheath, bronze hair braided and drawn back from his face. Vanimórë surveyed him with admiration both for his beauty and his strength of will to leave New Cuiviénen. The modelled mouth was still red with kisses.  
  
“There is no need to thank me; there are those who will be glad to see thee.” He lifted his shoulders. “I think thou art a fool.”  
  
Tindómion flashed with Fëanorion anger, but said, “Didst thou truly think that, thou wouldst not have aided me.”  
  
Vanimórë smiled, lead the way from the trees to the camp.  
“We move in the morning. How much knowest thou of what has happened?”  
  
“Fëanor told me what he and Fingolfin and my father saw in Carn Dûm.”  
  
“Then there is more thou needest to know.”  
  
The camp was settling for the night. They passed a Silvan sentry, who looked at Tindómion, then away, and then back again. At the nearest camp, a tall figure rose and turned fast, as if a hand had tapped him on the shoulder.  
  
“Elrohir.” Tindómion embraced him, the sternness melting from his face. Elladan joined him, and Elgalad came from where he talked with Thranduil. Vanimórë sat down beside the young soldiers. They were awake, sober and wished, he knew, that they were not. His presence reassured them, which he understood, but found risible. He examined Narok's ankle; it was sprained not broken, but he had decided the young soldier would be carried on a travois for a few days. Apart from that they were well enough physically; it was their souls that had been wounded.  
  
He had to control the rage. All well and good to believe (or hope) that Malantur would pay for his evil, Vanimórë wanted him dead now, and it was not purely personal. The erstwhile Mouth had left atrocities in his wake for a long time.  
  
“Sire?” Kashan said.  
  
“Yes?” He looked up, smiled.  
  
Kashan rubbed a hand over his face, shook his head. Divested of their half-armour, and washed, the soldiers seemed little more than boys. “Can we still serve you?”  
  
There was a catch in his voice. He was ashamed of his fear, Vanimórë knew, of his headlong flight. Mordor's regimen did not encourage cowardice.  
  
“I am no prince or king.”  
  
“You are more, my lord.”  
  
“Yes, but I have no realm or army. Yet.” But they wanted some-one to serve; it was what they were bred and trained for. “Where wouldst thou have gone, hadst thou not come here?”  
  
Vaija said, “We thought to travel into Khand, lord. There would surely have been work for us there.”  
  
“Yes.” He considered. “I have travelled into the south, to Umbar, as a caravan guard.” At their ill-concealed expressions, he smiled. “I need work, too.”  
  
After an uncomfortable, bewildered silence, Narok said, “Anything would be better than Carn Dûm, lord.”  
  
“I should have returned to Mordor,” Vanimórë said. _I am living proof, if any were needed that gods can be as fallible as any-one._  
He had not had powers when the War of the Ring ended, but after, he should have gone back to Mordor to see what had passed there.  
 _Regrets are damned useless, but I had a responsibility._  
“Make no decisions now, but come with me. First we go south to Imladris, and I think thou wilt enjoy some time there. It is a place of peace and beauty.”  
  
Their faces relaxed a little.  
  
“Listen to me: the memories will fade in time, become as an old dream.” It was true. They were Mortal, and young, and their lives lay ahead of them. “He will not have thee now, I swear.”  
  
“I did not...” Kashan looked at him, swallowed. The hazel eyes brimmed. “I did not think you would remember me, lord. Thank-you.” He shuddered and wrapped his arms around himself. “I am sorry, but cannot stop thinking...What if you had not come? ”  
  
“It horrifies _me,_ Kashan. There is no shame in thy fears.” He knelt and held the youth's shoulders until the shaking ceased. “I found thee because there are many threads that weave into this tale. This is part of a very old war, and some powers cannot yet be fought, not yet. And all of thee have been courageous, do not doubt it.”  
  
He left them comforting one another, strode to a shoulder of smooth rocks and looked over the camp. Tindómion was seated with the twins and Elgalad. Beleg and Aredhel had joined them, but Maeglin stood back, his face trained to stillness. Bainalph was talking with his two officers, Edenel and Thirvain. Vanimórë had seen him stride from the woods, flushed under the newly-applied war-tattoos, green-gold eyes brilliant with pain and fury. Now, he and Thranduil kept their distance, each too aware of one another. Though Vanimórë had not spied upon them, it was clear what had happened. The king had been certain of Bainalph's capitulation.  
  
 _But there is steel under that loveliness; thou hast much ground to cover, Thranduil._  
  
He had not interfered, beyond offering silent comfort. Bainalph had stalked to his people, sat down, and Edenel had braided his hair, a ritual with as much meaning as the markings on his face. Neither disguised the fact that the prince trembled. Tindómion's arrival had at least turned his attention outward. The Fëanorion had made no moves to attract attention, and did not need to; he was like a fire in the night. The wood-Elves stared at him; for some, this would be their first sight of a Noldor.  
  
 _Well, I thank thee for spoiling this night._ Glorfindel's voice punched him, and Vanimórë winced, though he had been half-expecting it.  
  
 _I do apologise._  
  
 _Yes, I can feel thy contrition._  
  
 _He asked me, and I saw no harm in it._ Vanimórë planted his feet as Finwion anger struck him like lightning, let it run through him, inhuman in its power.  
  
 _Very well,_ he said at last. _Enough. Perhaps thou art all too close to him to see why Tindómion wanted a little time away from the shadow of thy brilliance._  
  
 _Think'st thou I am obtuse?_ Fëanor stung the edges of Vanimórë's nerves. He stepped from the rocks. _I know exactly, and he is wrong. I want him to come in from the cold._  
  
 _But one becomes accustomed to the cold, Fëanor. Well, perhaps not thou._ He allowed himself a smile. _And leaving it for a room lit by many fires can be a little...overpowering._  
  
There was a small silence. He said, _Thou knowest that he loves as strongly as any of thee, but fears to lose himself. He would not of course for he, too, burns, but I can understand him, and this I will tell thee: He is needed here. Elladan and Elrohir might have left Imladris for New Cuiviénen, but love and responsibility binds them — and fate. Túrin needed them to be here. But they are yet lonely. Tindómion's presence is welcome._  
  
 _What is the strength of Imladris?_ Fëanor asked, some of the fire banked.  
  
 _Fewer than it ever was, and some of those are Teleri out of Mithlond who may not remain. I do not think Thranduil will remove to Imladris for the duration of this war, though it will serve as a base if he chooses._  
  
 _I would have come with him,_ Gil-galad said, his rage unconcealed. _But it was I he ran from. I shall not ask thee._ He added curses at his beloved, at which Vanimórë was forced to laugh. It soon faded.  
  
 _He will never leave thee for long._ He remembered his last sight of the High King, his body broken, struck by troll-spear and mace, and let his sadness, his respect, and the love that he felt for all those who had been doomed flow from him.  
  
Their presence drew away, save Glorfindel, the sun-storm calmed.  
 _And when wilt thou,_ he said. _come in from the cold?_  
  
There was a sense of a hand on his shoulder, and then the quiet wind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Garden of Summer under Shadows of Snow.
> 
> ** [Fragments of Fate and Fire: Chapter Three: I Am](http://efiction.esteliel.de/viewstory.php?sid=120&textsize=0&chapter=3) which is set some years after this, Fingolfin let Fëanor off the hook by telling him, what he had known for a long time, that the Valar had influenced Fëanor (who was half-mad at the time with Finwë's death) and that was the reason he had left Fingolfin and his people behind in Araman. Fëanor was simply unstable at the time, and thus open to the Valar's concerted ‘suggestion' that he burn the ships and abandon the others.


	44. ~ A Clouded Gem ~

~ Edenel's hands stilled in Bainalph's hair, who felt his shift in attention, and looked up, saw Vanimórë walk from the trees with a tall, bronze haired _Golodh._  
  
“Tindómion Maglorion,” Edenel said.  
He had seen the Fëanorion before. Bainalph had not, but Legolas and Elgalad had described Tindómion well. He possessed the kind of face an intemperate Power might own, and he walked like one. His mouth was hard, beautifully scrolled, hinting at passion too-often reined in. The eyes gleamed steel-silver as they skimmed over the Silvans then away, and Bainalph prickled, feeling as if he had been weighed and dismissed, but then realized that the _Golodh's_ attention was fully on the twins, hands illustrating his intense words. They were fine hands, long-fingered, accustomed to the grip of a sword.  
  
Bainalph saw Thranduil look across at him, tilt his head, indicating that they, as king and prince of the Greenwood, go to meet Tindómion. Reluctant to place himself anywhere near either King or Fëanorion, Bainalph nevertheless rose. He had been a ruler long enough to master this new and unfamiliar frailty that was not the delicious melting of surrender, but the tender wince of broken bone. The blood scalded into his skin as Thranduil's eyes rested on him. He returned the gaze with an attempt at indifference, and the King's face showed nothing. Bainalph did not expect it to, not now, not before every-one, but the tension sang between them like the thrum of a war-bow.  
  
As they approached the group around Tindómion, he saw them, laid his hand on his breast, inclined his head.  
“King Thranduil.” His voice was rich as cream. “And, I believe, Prince Bainalph.” He blazed a smile; that fatal Fëanorion charm which Bainalph did not doubt devolved, as did his dangerous beauty, from his infamous grandsire.  
  
“Tindómion Maglorion,” Thranduil returned, and there was a hesitation so brief Bainalph thought he had imagined it, before the King reached out his hand, and they gripped wrists. The last time these two had met was during the war of the Last Alliance. There were no pleasant memories here for either of them. Then Bainalph found himself under the scrutiny of those silver eyes, and in them he saw sympathy.  
  
“We heard what happened to thee.” The smile had vanished. “I am sorry.”  
  
Flushed, flustered by the charisma of the Fëanorion, and Thranduil's proximity, Bainalph said only: “I thank you, Prince Tindómion.” He disengaged himself after a moment, and returned to his camp.  
“I wish,” he said under his breath, “That we could go home.”  
  
Edenel laid a hand over his, but his attention was still on the Fëanorion, and Bainalph studied the _Ithiledhel's_ face. There was trouble in it, like a man reaching unwillingly into a bruised past. Edenel blinked, and his eyes came back. He took the ends of Bainalph's unfinished braids and tied them, traced the black battle markings.  
“And so, you are ready.”  
  
Bainalph saw understanding, spoke into it.  
“He seeks to bind me in every way there is.”  
  
“As you bound him.” There was no censure in the response.  
  
“I was a foolish boy,” he said, low. “I did not know...did not want to know. And certainly I did not think.”  
  
“Of Thranduil's marriage?”  
  
“Did you know?”  
  
Edenel dipped his head in affirmation.  
“It was long before your birth, Bainalph. And it was what the King made of it that mattered, not the blood-binding itself.”  
  
“You knew that also?” But Bainalph was not surprised.  
  
“The signs were there to read.” He released Bainalph's hand. “I saw Thranduil when he first came to the forest. He would have embraced the old ways wholeheartedly if he could. But he is a man who takes his pledges very seriously. And at that time, there was little else he could do.”  
  
Bainalph leaned his head against his knees.  
“He could not refuse, though it should have been his father who bound himself. Thranduil was the sacrifice for a kingdom. And still I would have gone to him that night.”  
  
“I think he would not have come to you, but denying you would have eaten at him, just as taking you did. And after that, the rare times you and he shared the same space, neither of you could hide what was between you.”  
  
“And I thought I concealed it so well.” Bainalph's fragile laugh shattered and died in his throat.  
  
“I watched you,” Edenel said. “It was clear that something had happened between you and the King that autumn night, but it was no-one's business. The pain I saw in you after is felt only by those who have lost one they love to battle. It is in his eyes, the Fëanorion's, even now.” And yes, it was, Bainalph had seen it among his own people.  
  
“You endured for Alphgarth, and found pleasure in your lovers.” Edenel's smile flickered like a candle with memory, then faded. “But the wound remained.”  
  
“You knew everything. You have — ” He paused, then looked full into the _Ithiledhel's_ strange eyes. “Known pain.”  
  
“All of us,” Edenel said, calm, as if remembering something so ancient that Time had eaten grief, and Bainalph saw it, fire and agony. Shocked, helpless, he fell, as he had fallen into Carn Dûm, into Malantur's foetid mind. Then the walls went up, like opaque glass, and Bainalph felt himself pushed firmly, compassionately away. Edenel said, “Torment has given thy soul depth, my prince, but our pain is not yours to bear.”  
  
He stared.  
“You name me your prince, and I would share it.”  
  
“Now is not the time.”  
  
A small silence. Bainalph whispered: “I have ever been selfish. I did not see.” But had he not known, in the songs of the _Ithiledhil_ , and in their eyes, that the past held pain beyond measure, and far greater than his own?  
  
“You have been touched by power.” Edenel's barriers were still raised, smooth as his face. “It changes one forever.”  
  
Bainalph clenched his hands, forgetting Thranduil, forgetting the _Golodh_ , even Carn Dûm.  
“What...touched you, Edenel?”  
  
The _Ithiledhel_ did not answer immediately. He looked north, a frown between his brows, and then he said, “I believe that we always have to confront our greatest fear, and destroy it, or it will destroy us.”  
  
The air went thin into Bainalph's lungs.  
“You could not have known Malantur.” But it was not the sorcerer who held the true power.  
_Spirits from the Void._  
He was on his feet, heart going hard. His mouth shaped Edenel's name.  
  
_No, my prince. Not yet._  
  
Their eyes clashed and held, and Bainalph felt the _Ithiledhel's_ will forcing his own back, inexorable as an incoming storm. The world Bainalph had always known shattered, fell away as if the forest itself had been uprooted, exposing all that lay beneath. How self-obsessed he had been all his life, telling himself that one did not pry, did not ask questions. It was his unwillingness to ask, to hear anything he did not want to that had lead him here. He closed his eyes, felt Edenel's hands on his arms.  
“You cannot slay the sorcerer,” he breathed. “It is Túrin's fate.”  
  
“Fear can be destroyed in many ways. One need not wield the weapon.”  
  
Bainalph understood then. Edenel sought to best the demons that haunted his past. But who were they? The remote, pearl-grey eyes gave him back no answer.  
  


~~~

  
  
Tindómion's greeting to Maeglin was cream poured over stone, a courtier forced to speak politely to one he mistrusted but could not ignore. Echoes of Gondolin. Maeglin had expected nothing else, or so he tried to tell himself. He did not succeed. With the revelation that Fëanor and Fingolfin had observed him, that Fëanor would accept him into New Cuiviénen for his mother's sake, Maeglin had hoped for more: perhaps a message. There was none, but from what he had heard of both men, neither would approach him through an intermediary. Tindómion's reasons for being here were unrelated to him. A twisted smile curled at his egoism. He had been called arrogant before, but came of an arrogant family on both sides. Certainly _he_ would not sue for pardon.  
  
“I will keep watch,” he said, when his mother asked him where he was going, and her expression softened. She laid a hand on his face, and he fashioned a smile out of turmoil for her, turned away. Beleg looked at him, quiet, understanding. His own meeting with the Fëanorion had been somewhat tense, though he did not blame Tindómion for what had come upon Doriath. Yet there was a shadow there, and Maeglin tried not to be grateful for it. Thranduil, that feral King, had approached the Fëanorion himself, but Maeglin understood that he knew of the man through his son, and could hardly ignore him. Anyhow, they were all fighting the same foe. What had he become, grasping at every dry stalk of attention, resenting how the others gathered around Tindómion? Disgusted at himself, he walked away. He had said he would keep watch; there was no need for guards outside Angmar with Vanimórë present, but no warrior would relinquish the habits of a lifetime.  
  
The wind had changed. The nightlong twilight brought milky cloud that lowered and thickened over the land. A mist came up from the river, drifted through the trees, flowed across the encampment. Small fires were smothered ember jewels. Maeglin passed beyond them.  
  
Tindómion had spoken of many things that evening, and Maeglin had listened from a distance, conscious of a hunger within him, like a child longing for news of a family that had rejected him. Foolishness. He had known Turgon (and betrayed him) met Fingon only briefly when Gondolin marched to the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. The others were tales, legends. Of the Fëanorions, he had seen only perilous Curufin when he fled from Nan Elmoth with his mother. He had been young them, overawed by the prince's dark glamour. His family was Aredhel. The feeling of being locked out was only his due, and should not feel so sour in his veins. Yet it did, and the bitterness sprang from Gondolin's bright fountains, when the two he wanted most dearly had rejected him.  
  
Perhaps he should have wept for his father's death, even though Eöl had purposed to kill him, perhaps he should have torn his hair when his mother died, but his pride would not permit it; he would not bare his heart to the Gondolindhrim. They were strangers, aloof as stars, and as fiery. For all Turgon accepted him as a prince and kinsman, Maeglin was not one of them. And there was shame for his father's acts, shame and hatred, which, he knew instinctively, would be considered as unnatural as his desire for Idril. Familial bonds were strong among the Noldor.  
  
_I loved my father once, before he looked on me with suspicion, coldly, a betrayer in his eyes, before ever I betrayed Gondolin._  
  
And he had loved his mother too deeply. Tears did not cleanse one of grief.  
Thus he had guarded his emotions, save from two people: Idril, who saw something ill in him, as did Glorfindel, though his mistrust had its root in what he perceived as coldness. It was said that Glorfindel's father, Finarfin, had been cold. If that was so, little wonder the Lord of the Golden Flower looked askance.  
  
But neither Idril not Glorfindel could thwart his rise as a power in the city. Maeglin had discovered in himself a aptitude to rule, and if it were only his own household, he dreamed that it could be more. He was a skilled smith, and his great work, the Gate of Steel had been a wonder. Yet he had never been happy in Gondolin. The last years had been lived in a black, seething madness that left him only as he lay dying. There had been some mercy there, after the horror of the fall. His steps faltered in the remembered pain of slamming into rock again and again, first the shock, then the agony of broken bones, crushed organs. When he struck the ground he was as ruined as any prisoner torn apart by Morgoth's servants. The fires had crept inexorably toward him, but were slower than his dying. Had they not been, he would have been roasted in his armour, a helpless, shattered thing. He had been granted time enough to regret, to weep, before the Void claimed him. And there he was shown the death of Gondolin, had been forced to see it again and again, the slaughter, the rape, the mutilation of corpses, until he was mad again. But — _If thou hadst only loved me,_ he thought, to bright Glorfindel, falling in flame. _I would have let Morgoth torture me rather than betray thee._  
  
Now, knowing what perversions Malantur practiced in Carn Dûm, he doubted he could have withstood Morgoth's torment. His previous death had been easy compared to the one that awaited him.  
  
It was almost dark now, with the mist idling chill, a reminder that summer was short in these far northern lands. Maeglin missed Imladris, the gardens, the music of water, the long winter nights of hot wine, the glow of braziers, the wildness of Beleg in his bed, giving without asking anything, the strange acceptance he had found, and did not deserve.  
But the hidden valley reminded him too much of Gondolin, and he had betrayed Gondolin. Could he save Imladris, (because he thought that the valley would, one day, come under attack) or was he once again prompted by egotism? Probably, but he would be involved in this war. Determination hardened like cooling iron in his blood.  
  
He heard, as he walked, murmurs of low conversation, a tune hummed quiet and melodious. He passed a sentry, perfectly still, moved beyond him. The mist swirled breast-high in places, and Maeglin remembered that, at times, the valley of Tumladen would fill like a bowl with pearl-white fog while the city stood clear. He stopped, drew Anglachel from its sheath. The blade thrummed in his hands. He raised it, faced the north, then drove it deep into the earth, and went down on one knee.  
  
A man walked toward him. Maeglin thought him another sentry at first, then looking up, the blood seemed to stop in his veins. His hands clenched tight, cold on Anglachel's guard.  
  
He saw his mother's face, yet more beautiful, and hardened into maleness, saw that light in the star-coloured eyes only those banished to the Void possessed; it was as if their condemned souls had battled the darkness at its heart, shining brighter and brighter, and now would not dim. His mouth dried.  
  
“Thou shouldst be kneeling to Turgon,” Fingolfin said, cold as crystal. “I should slay thee here, for him, for Gondolin.”  
  
His sword whispered into his hands. Stars fumed along its edges.  
Maeglin bent his head. His long braids slipped to the ground, and the air was chill against his neck. Relief settled into him, welcome as a pair of loving arms. He rested within them.  
“Thou doth honour me, my Lord.”  
  
The air shirred. Maeglin remembered, as when he fell in Gondolin, all his life, that first life and this. And the steel bit.  
  
  
Fëanor watched as Fingolfin brought the sword down; smoking mist coiled back in ribbons from the blade — which just kissed Maeglin's skin. Whom had not flinched, though the fingers that gripped Anglachel's cross-guard were bloodless. Across him, Fingolfin raised his eyes, his face a picture of baulked fury, of acknowledgement that he could not do it, did not even want to because Maeglin was his blood. He lifted the blade. Fëanor crossed to him, slipped a hand behind his head, so they stood brow to brow for a moment. The tremors sank back into Fingolfin's flesh.  
He said on a vein of anger: “Thou knowest me better than I know myself.”  
  
“No. Thou hadst no intention of killing him.”  
Where was his own hate? He searched for it, found it, a little thing buried deep under the concentrated wrath directed at the Valar and their fallen brother. He understood Maeglin's madness, for he had ridden upon its crest himself. So had Fingolfin. Maeglin raised his head, watched them with shock in the wide, beautiful eyes.  
“Lord,” he whispered to Fëanor, and then, to his grandsire: “Why?”  
  
Fingolfin turned back to him.  
“My daughter loves thee, more than life, more than shattered kingdoms.”  
  
“I live because of my mother.” His voice acquired black frost. “Vanimórë told me; thou wouldst accept me into New Cuiviénen for her sake.”  
  
“And thou wilt not come.” Fëanor studied him, seeing behind the hardness of his face, to the root of his jealousy and spoiled love. “Neither would I.”  
  
Maeglin vented a flat, unwilling gasp of laughter.  
“My part in this tale may be a minor one, but I _will_ rewrite it. I would not go to New Cuiviénen until this war is over, and then...” His lips closed over the last words.  
  
“Glorfindel has said that thou art prepared for a bad death.” Fingolfin took a step closer to him, and Fëanor saw their profiles, the stamp of the Finwii. Emotion quivered through Maeglin's body.  
“I will do my utmost to make it a good death,” he vowed.  
  
“No.” Fingolfin sliced the word down between them like another blade.  
  
“Thou knowest how this must end, my Lord.” His grandson stared north into the fog. “I should have defied Morgoth. I will have to defy the sorcerer.”  
  
“If thou art taken by him and tormented,” Fingolfin said, pitiless. “And die in Carn Dûm, hidden from sight, who will know?”  
  
Maeglin looked at him. “I will, my Lord.”  
  
The air swam heavy between them. Fingolfin cast a sidelong glance at Fëanor.  
  
“I but tread the path I took long ago.” Maeglin spoke after a moment.  
  
“It is not the same path,” Fëanor told him, and the ice-grey eyes flashed.  
“Is it not, Sire?”  
He came to his feet, pulled Anglachel from the turf. Deep in the metal a red light curled down the inscription. Fëanor felt its strange unliving sentience as he had felt the Silmarilli. The original making of that sword, and Maeglin's re-making of it were not small achievements.  
  
“My part, I was told by Lórien, was to reforge this, and give it to Túrin when he is grown,” Maeglin said. “But my soul knew there was more. Fate will lead me back to Carn Dûm, and to death.”  
  
Fëanor snapped his fingers before Maeglin's face.  
“That to fate.” The darkness that had lead this man to betray Gondolin was again rooting itself in his heart. Maeglin knew what would happen to him were he to fall into Malantur's hands, and would face it, atone for his treachery. Fëanor wondered if he himself could accept such an end. No. He always wrestled with fate, even in the Void, but so had Maeglin, or he would not be here. Fëanor had felt his soul, burning on the edge of his own awareness, unwilling to come close. He had reached out, as he had to all of them, because Maeglin bore his brother's blood.  
  
“It must not be so.” Fingolfin's voice held a King's command. “Thou must come before Turgon and the Gondolindhrim that were.”  
  
Maeglin's brows flicked. “I doubt I will live for them to judge me.”  
  
“Fëanor has decreed there will be no execution.” Fingolfin began to turn away, as if he could not bear to look on his grandson's face any longer. Fëanor caught his eyes, and Fingolfin's own blazed. He wheeled back, took Maeglin by the shoulders.  
“My daughter is not a fool,” he hissed. “She has a family, but loves _thee_ more than any of us. And so thou wilt rewrite thy part in this tale and take thy place in New Cuiviénen.”  
  
There was amazement writ clear in Maeglin's face; that Fingolfin would touch him, even in anger, and there was dread. He did not want, Fëanor understood, to face those he had betrayed, and he did not believe they would let him live, not though the High King had spoken. Then he steeled himself. His face was stern, and seemed very young as he said, “I would regain my honour my Lord. I only wanted — ” His teeth snapped down hard. Pride stiffened his muscles.  
  
“Tell me.”  
  
“Thou knowest.”  
  
“I would hear it from thee,” Fingolfin said inflexibly.  
  
“There are no excuses.” Maeglin's voice came worn thin. “I wanted to be Turgon's heir.”  
  
“And now?”  
  
He did not answer.  
_He will not admit what he wants._  
Fingolfin's fingers tightened.  
  
“If only my father had slain me as he intended.” Maeglin spoke as to himself, and self-pity was entirely absent from his tone. “I want my mother safe, Imladris safe, the sorcerer destroyed, for Beleg to live this time, and Túrin, for them to love without pain, without the shadow of death over them.”  
  
“And nothing for thyself? Ah, that pride,” Fëanor said, when Fingolfin only looked, his brows drawn into a frown. “Thou wert part of the Doom of the Noldor. We all were.”  
  
Maeglin's head shook once. “It is so, but we are not mindless moppets for the Valar to play with as they will.”  
  
“They were more subtle; used our own desires against us. And Glorfindel has said he toyed with thee ruthlessly.”  
  
In the grey-white gloom, Maeglin flushed. “I knew that. It was a game that turned too deadly. He wanted to distract me from Idril.” On her name, he stared fiercely at Fingolfin. “I know she is not here to confirm or deny, but I never touched her.”  
  
“Fanari Penlodiel told us as much, privily,” Fingolfin said. “Thou wouldst have died aforetime, hadst thou used Idril ill.”  
  
“I wanted her honestly!” Maeglin closed his eyes, drew a breath. “The prohibition against marrying close kin did not exist among the Sindar. And there was Glorfindel, my cousin, who winked at the laws. I could not refuse what he offered. I was obsessed; in that I am like my father.”  
  
Fingolfin released him. “Not only thy father.” The blue-silver glitter in his eyes leaped across the space that separated he and Fëanor. “I cannot forgive thee,” he said. “I cannot usurp Turgon's prerogative. Thou didst betray him and his people, not me.”  
  
“They will not forgive me.” Maeglin stated. “I would not.” His mouth set stubbornly.  
  
“And yet,” Fëanor said. “I have been forgiven.”  
  
Fingolfin flashed him a goaded glance, as if to say, _Hast thou?_  
  
_Not truly by thee. I know. Love betrayed is the greatest of all betrayals._  
  
“Thou didst prove thyself,” his half-brother said. “And before all of us.”  
  
“I will prove myself — to myself.” Maeglin placed the words down like gold coins. “As thou sayest, my Lord,” to Fingolfin. “My mother loves me, and I have always loved her.” His chest heaved as he struggled on with brittle control. “But now, if she will, she may bear other children who will not force her into exile, nor lay on her the shame of treachery.”  
  
Fingolfin seized his grandson's shoulders again, shook him, hard.  
“Thinks't thou that one child can replace another?”  
  
Maeglin held himself stiffly.  
“Then at least she may take some pride in my memory. For do not think, my Lord, that even had she lived I would not have done exactly the same.” He lifted his chin, inviting hatred. “And thou may not command me, for thou wilt not own me as thy grandson. Yet I would ask — ” A shiver went through him. “Ere the end, my name will no longer be a curse. I would ask thee to make that known to my — to the Noldor.”  
  
Fëanor saw well enough what lay behind the request. Maeglin believed the only recognition, the only forgiveness he might receive was by dying with honour. He saw no other way to wash the black stains of treachery from his name, but he also wanted — desperately — to be embraced by the family he had betrayed, and not for his mother's sake, love her though he did. Even Turgon had, (he said) seen Aredhel in her son. Maeglin had been a replacement for one who was gone. Fëanor had never lived in any-one's shadow, but he could well imagine the resentment it might breed. He considered Fingolfin's words of Finarfin, weighed another reason for his hatred, and made a decision.  
  
_I will break the Valar's hold on thee,_ he vowed, then focused all his attention upon the delicate scene unfolding before him.  
  
Maeglin held his grandsire's eyes for an admirably long time before dropping his own. It was not easy for any man to stare down Fingolfin when his temper was roused.  
  
“No.”  
  
The bald refusal branded a flush across Maeglin's cheeks.  
“No. Too much to ask.” He spoke to the mists. “This is not the first time I have seen thee,” he added, as if moving away from embarrassment, and Fingolfin frowned. Maeglin looked up again. “Not the visions we were shown in the Void. I was in Gondolin when Thorondor brought thy body.”  
  
Fingolfin's face went blank. Fëanor felt a surge deep within, the fury of love and hate at his brother's hard death — and, always, soaring pride. He wanted to touch Fingolfin then, to assure himself of his gem-bright reality, and he knew it would ever be thus for him, for all of them. He did not move; this was not a moment to shatter.  
  
“We should not have remained in Gondolin; we should have ridden out no matter what the risk.” Old, thick anger chased the uncertainty from Maeglin's voice. “When I was brought before Morgoth, I thought of thee, how thou wouldst never have bowed the knee before him, not thou, nor Glorfindel or Ecthelion — and I did. I did. But not this time. Whomever, whatever possesses that sorcerer in Carn Dûm, _I will not kneel._ I will not betray. I have sworn it.” He wrenched then, at Fingolfin's clasp, and Fëanor saw his brother's fingers whiten, driving to the bone. He took one half-step forward, then halted, imagined how he might feel had one of his grandsons done as Maeglin had. Fingolfin's face shone in the murk like a pearl lamp, bright with the tumult of emotion.  
  
Maeglin's voice dropped, but was no less intense. “I have vowed it.” His head turned, and his eyes rested on Fëanor. “I vow it.”  
He thought they did not believe him, that his traitor's word was worth naught, it was in his eyes, the lines of his body, the resignation as Fingolfin's hands opened and released him. He bowed, turned to Fëanor, repeated the gesture, then walked away.  
  
Fëanor checked himself because he knew his half-brother, who cursed under his breath, cleaved the mist apart with long strides, and caught Maeglin before he vanished.  
_I_ am _bringing an army._  
  
_Not our war,_ Fëanor teased. There had been no need to speak of it; they were that close at times, thus Fingolfin's declaration was no surprise. Maeglin was clearly nonplussed. His eyes shone like fractured ice as he glanced from Fingolfin to Fëanor who, smiling, raised his brows.  
_Ah, Aredhel's son, I would have bound thee so close that thou wouldst never have looked aside._  
  
“Thou needst not cleanse thy name with death,” Fingolfin said. And: “ _Lómion._ ”  
  
None of Fëanor's seductions were wholly calculated save that of Melkor, and even then there had, for a time, been some fascination; in all of them was a measure of love and desire. Not all seduction must need lead to the bedchamber, though that was always a possibility. Fëanor had charmed his sons as surely as he had Fingolfin, and now saw the same lethal persuasion in his half-brother. He wished there might come a day when Fingolfin turned that not inconsiderable force upon him, but in their relationship Fëanor was always the pursuer. Yet he appreciated the finesse with which Maeglin was drawn in, accepted, and bound with one word. And there was, he would swear, no calculation in it. Fingolfin needed to love his grandson because it was simply against the natural order of things for the Finwii not to love one another, no matter how violent and sometimes deadly the schisms between them.  
  
Maeglin heard his mother-name with a visible jolt. If he had any defences, they melted at that moment. Fingolfin drew his fingers down the suave lines of his grandson's face, over the high curve of the cheeks, past the moulded mouth, to the rapid pulse-beat of his throat, and Maeglin closed his eyes, arched toward him.  
  
“Lómion,” he repeated in that beautiful voice that could murmur words of forbidden love, and call the darkest Power from his fortress. “We will bring an army to Imladris, and when the time of thy testing comes thou wilt not be alone, and I swear by Ilúvatar thou wilt not die. We will take the light of our swords into the darkness, and thy vow will be witnessed. Then thou wilt take thy place among us as a prince of the House of Fingolfin, for _that is what thou art._ ”  
  
Maeglin looked at him as if he were a summer sun rising in midwinter, melting a season of ice.  
  
“I know the pain of losing a parent,” Fingolfin said. “But never have I loved without it was returned. Yet I can imagine the pain of it. I do not know what it would have driven me to. I have judged thee, but I have seen thy soul, and I will not lose thee.”  
  
He took Maeglin's face between his hands and kissed his brow, and then his mouth; the kiss of kinship that was so much more among the Finwions than familial care, though that too. Yes, that too.  
  
_Thou art so good at this,_ Fëanor thought in the privacy of his mind. Not for nothing had Fingolfin's followers numbered more than his own; he knew he was harder to love than his half-brothers, and it had never troubled him. He _chose_ his people.  
  
“We will go now, for we have much to plan.” Fingolfin released Maeglin without haste. “I will not see my daughter.” His expression showed rue. “I would be too tempted to ask Glorfindel to bring her back to New Cuiviénen, and she would not stay there long. We came to see thee, not Aredhel.”  
  
Maeglin's face was radiant, bewildered. “My Lord,” he began, groping.  
  
“I am thy grandsire.” Fingolfin laid two fingers over his lips. “We will speak anon.” He turned his head to Fëanor, and Maeglin followed his look, a question in his eyes.  
Fëanor kissed him, and lingered over it, tasted Fingolfin on his mouth, in his blood, and when he drew back the colour that bloomed in Maeglin's cheeks again was not that of shame, but of arousal.  
“Prince of the Finwii,” He murmured. “Yes, indeed.” He took Fingolfin's arm and as they walked away, both looked back at Maeglin standing wreathed by mist, but with a look in his eyes no darkness could dim. A clouded gem, now unveiled.  
  


~~~


	45. ~ Black Crucible ~

**~ Black Crucible ~**

 

~ Tindómion saw Maeglin return, and one look at his face told the tale. Fingolfin and Fëanor had been close; Tindómion had felt them, and guessed why they came. Not for him, whom they had already bound, but for Maeglin. Later, Aredhel told them, her son silent and yes, the word was _radiant_ at her side, what her father and uncle purposed.  
Elladan and Elrohir shared one burning look, as if hearing a battle trump far off.

_They might have elected to remain in Imladris, but they yearn for their Noldor kin,_ Tindómion thought. Exhilaration built like a wave, crested, and hissed through his body. There was poetry here: an army out of the Elder Days would fight the new face of an ancient darkness. But there was danger, too.

_Danger, but ah, Eru! do we not deserve victory?_  
_We._ The Noldor, whom had seen so much bloody defeat.

“In the meantime,” Elladan said, through a glinting smile. “We will do what we can with our own forces.”

“We must hold a council of war with Thranduil.” Elrohir gestured back to where the wood-Elves ranged and Tindómion, looking, wondered how the king would react to the news. He had been conscious of the bright Silvan eyes on him, though Thranduil had been courteous enough.  
“And send messengers to Gondor. I would call the Mouth doomed,” Elladan added. “He will be facing at least two armies. But orcs breed fast. And they will be the lesser threat.”

“Thranduil purposes t-to starve them out,” Elgalad said.

“They'll breed 'em to eat.”  
It was Vixen who spoke. The female Uruk-hai had been walking a little apart, apparently untroubled by the encroaching trees, the rotting logs sinking into bog. Tindómion watched her with wary fascination. She jumped a dread-fall sinuously, keeping abreast. The yellow-maned Lion drifted across to her.  
“Survival. They will turn cannibal if there is no other choice.”

“It is not that uncommon,” Vanimórë said absently. “Even among tribes of Men in times of hardship.”

“I think they will try to escape.” Narok spoke from his travois, raising himself on his elbows. “Our people, my Lord. Once they learn what the Mouth is doing.”

Lion hissed, exposing the incisors that marked the orcish blood that deeply disturbed Tindómion. The wood-Elves and Angmari ignored them, but Tindómion had learned that they were in fact responsible for the creatures peculiar, unacknowledged acceptance among them. But they were more unsettling in their exotic, near-human looks than orcs would have been, these last breeding experiments of the unlamented Saruman. 

 

“Only so long the bastard can promise gifts and deliver nothing,” Lion muttered.

“If any Men escape they deserve a chance of freedom. I will speak to Thranduil about it, since many of his warriors may be watching Angmar.”  
Vanimórë carried the front of the travois without effort, Elgalad taking the back with Narok's companions walking each side. Tindómion had fought Southrons in the wars of Eregion, yet he could not view these youths as enemies. They had come to Angmar because the Mouth had so ordered, and he outranked them. Copper-skinned Vaija had called Mordor 'home'. It was impossible to imagine. Tindómion had seen the ash plains of Lithlad and Gorgoroth, and although intellectually he had known there was more to the Black Land, they coloured his memories with bitter dust. But a place wholly barren, blasted by vulcanism could never have survived as a realm, nor spread its influence so far. Mordor had indeed been home to thousands of Mortals and, in coming to terms with that fact, watching these young soldiers whom had been born and bred there, Tindómion's long-held beliefs crumbled. He did not cling to them. In Imladris, he — all of them — had become insular, looking inward, looking back. No more.

“He has nothing to give,” Kashan said, trotting up to walk beside Vanimórë. “And there is no honour to be found in serving him.”

Tindómion blinked at that. He had not associated honour with soldiers of Mordor, had not known of the legions of Men that would have marched out of the Morannon had Sauron seized the One Ring. He gazed hard at Vanimórë, who would have lead them.

“We should not think only of Malantur when we speak of him, try to imagine his next moves,” Vanimórë warned. “He is nothing now but a cipher to be used by those in the Void: Gothmog, if Coldagnir is right. Melkor himself could affect his mind. He is doing _something_. Malantur could not create ghouls, such as the Man Hrath now is, though he might believe so. He thinks himself Sauron's heir.” His mouth tilted in derision. “And it is possible others beside Malantur may be used.”

Kashan said, his voice tight: “There are few left, my Lord. There was no time. Forgive me. I wish I could have brought more out, but — ”

“I ordered thee to come.” Vanimórë cut across his obvious distress. “There was naught else to do, not then. Thou hast brought Vaija and Narok, which was more than I expected. Nonetheless, I hope the others do escape.”

Kashan dragged a hand through his hair, shook his head. A shadow passed over his face. It held terror. He said, “I also, my Lord.”

Vanimórë glanced down at him. “Thou didst well.” His brilliant smile approved, and charmed “I am proud of all of thee.”

_He has that quality,_ Tindómion mused, and it was rare enough. Here was a man who would elicit worship in those who followed him, if they were not jealous, as clearly the Mouth had been.  
_I hope we never regret his apotheosis._

Purple eyes flashed to him. Black brows went up. Tindómion returned the look for a long, unsmiling moment, his father's face floating lost and beautiful between them like a torch and Vanimórë, to his annoyance and amusement, mimed a kiss.

The trees thinned, dwindled to a scatter. Moorland and tors rolled before them and far to the south-west a line of hills swelled: the Emyn Uial. Approaching them was a line of horses, two of them bearing riders, the rest following. Coldagnir's hair flamed scarlet under the sun.

Maeglin said beside him: “I would have taken the Blood-kiss Oath.”

Tindómion forced himself to look not at Maeglin the traitor, but Lómion, Fingolfin's grandson, and for no reason and every reason, the upraised palm he had set between them, clenched itself around complications. Maeglin's profile, with its lovely hard lines, was too familiar to hate. But he thought of Glorfindel's death, his mother, who might have died in Gondolin's fall.

As if he had heard Tindómion's thoughts, Maeglin turned his head.

“I would, one day, beg Fanari's pardon.”

His mother had told him tales of Gondolin since he was a child, but very little of Maeglin. No-one spoke of him. He was a curse on a dark wind, an aberration the Noldor would have lief forgotten. But he was not the only one, and Tindómion wondered, not for the first time, what had become of those whom had walked under Morgoth's spell, been driven from their people to wander alone, and those who had escaped in truth but were viewed with equal suspicion.

“Thy mother was Idril's friend, as thou must know,” Maeglin said. “But also her shield. I think it was wrong now, for Idril to use her thus. Fanari often bore the brunt of my frustrations.”

“Thou didst misuse my mother?” Tindómion's muscles tightened, and he heard Glorfindel's mind-voice say, _He did not hurt her. I would not have permitted it. And I too, think it wrong that Idril hid behind her, and would not tell her father. Though Maeglin would not have touched her, not while I played him._

That Maeglin heard those words was evident. His pale cheeks coloured.

_I might have been able to prevent his treachery, but Ulmo's words pronounced our doom long before Maeglin's birth. He was used both by the Valar and by me._

Tindómion met the beautiful ice-grey eyes, and his anger slowly flattened itself.  
“My mother never told me of thine enmity, although I guessed it was there. I hope thou wilt have the opportunity to apologize.” He looped a hand about one braid, tugged it in exasperation. “I concealed thy presence here even from her, from those I have come to love. What can I now say, when thou art accepted? And I doubt that thou wouldst care if Turgon refused to forgive thee, when those whose approval thou hast desired already have.”

Maeglin's smile was complex.  
“Thou seest true,” he said. “When my mother died I would have left Gondolin, searched for my grandsire, were it possible. Even less than she did I desire to be shut away. But Turgon's law was absolute, except when it was not.” Long fingers smoothed over the hilt of Anglachel. His eyes were distant, icy. “And so. Glorfindel and Ecthelion became my heroes. They _blazed._ I thought they chafed as I did, and more after the Dagor Bragollach. And then Fingolfin was brought to us dead, broken, still glorious. I became ashamed of our isolation. And when we did ride out, it was to see ruin. Fingon, so like his father...I saw him stand waiting for the Balrog, that monstrous thing of black fire... All the lights were were put out one by one, and I pulled darkness down on the one that remained.” His stared challenge invited anger. Tindómion said, “And thou didst go into darkness with it ”

“Not for my treachery, as thou knowest.” The lush mouth went taut. “And that, forgiveness notwithstanding, still lies at my feet. For _that_ I will make full requital. After my death, my soul was dragged before Mandos. It was so cold, so bleak, though I had no body to feel it, that I thought myself already in the Void. It was like those dead, grey winds in winter when there is no hope of spring. The Doomsman was there, with hate black in his eyes. He said naught of my betrayal, only my _unholy_ desires, and sent me into Night as if tossing away a gnawed bone.”

The banked anger in Tindómion uncoiled, roused by a different wind. He thought of the expression he saw at whiles in Fëanor's eyes, in the eyes of all who had been damned. Though they were reborn, free of Valinor, nothing was forgotten and the Valar, unlike Maeglin, would never be forgiven. Tindómion knew that Fëanor had the Valar in his sights as surely as a hunter who tracks wounded prey.  
“Glorfindel has been my friend since he first returned to Middle-earth,” he said. “And the fall of Gondolin was engraved in my mother's eyes ever after. But I came very close to betraying everything I love, tempted as thou wert. I have walked a little on that path.”

Maeglin looked startled. “If it is not discourteous, I would ask how didst thou resist.”

It was not a thing Tindómion liked to recall, but he had spoken first, and could not now refuse to answer.  
“Thou wilt have learned of the Three Rings, and the One?” At the nod, he continued: “In Ost-in-Edhil, Sauron — Annatar — gave me a ring, a gift to Gil-galad. He said that wearing it, my king would become the greatest the world had known, and we might live freely, outside the Laws. That ring, or rather Sauron, showed me my desires, both those acknowledged and those hidden. Some of them were black: revenge against those who watched and whispered, who sought for aberrant behavior. Gil's mother and her court, themselves fearful and bent from their natural inclinations, forced into marriage lest the eye of condemnation turn on them.” His face was hot, lips stiff as he remembered. No, nothing was forgotten, nothing, truly, forgiven.  
“It was not a Great Ring, but it had power enough. I asked Glorfindel for help. I could not have done it alone. We destroyed it.” He added, “Few people know.”

“I understand,” Maeglin responded. “For I too was shown all I desired, and revenge was a part of it. And yet, thou didst resist. I did not.”

Tindómion shrugged. “Annatar was not Morgoth. There was no coercion, only temptation, which can be as irresistible.” He reached out a hand. “I will stand by thee, Lómion, when the time comes. We are kin, and I am only beginning to know what that means among the Finwii. And I think thou wilt learn that, also.”

“Thou wouldst trust me?” Maeglin, whom had all at once become Lómion, lifted Finwion gull-wing brows. “Because _they_ do? How odd, now I think of it. They did not speak of trust.”

“They did not have to,” Tindómion said. “They have _claimed_ thee. With a look, a touch on thy soul. Forever.” He found himself smiling through rue, through acknowledgement of his own inescapable bondage. He wanted to like this man, yet the bloody banners of treachery flung serpentine shadows behind him. It was an insight into what Fingolfin must feel each time he looked at the half-brother he loved.

Around them, people were halting, shrugging off packs, tossing down fagots of wood they had collected in the forest, the carcases of young bucks and birds.

“Thou also?” Lómion whispered.

“Yes.” Tindómion's smile deepened. “Thank Eru they do not truly hate each other. I think they would break the world.”

Lómion glanced around, said silently, his eyes intent: _It was told as a fact in Gondolin, how Fëanor and Fingolfin disliked one another, Fëanor's betrayal, Fingolfin's rage at it. Turgon lost his wife crossing the Helcaraxë, and he was not the only one. Does_ he _forgive Fëanor?_

_I do not know._ Tindómion's acquaintance with Turgon was of the slightest. Though his mother was Gondolindhrim, Tindómion was not drawn to her House. He was, as Fanari had always said, Fëanorion. _In his heart, perhaps not, but if Fëanor has his sons' absolute loyalty — and he does — so do Fingolfin's sons' follow and trust their father._ He realized for the first time that no-one in Imladris would know the sum of all that had happened in New Cuiviénen. Yet it would seem that Maeglin _No, Lómion_ had seen what was between brother and half-brother. They had not concealed it. That spoke of trust.

_Thou art not going to betray Fingolfin,_ he said, sure of it. _Nor Fëanor either. Let us talk._

~~~

Zeva appeared uncertain as he dismounted his horse. His eyes turned back to his companion, then sought the Elves. Vanimórë smiled at him, watched as the tribesmen approached. These were not men who bent the knee easily, but now they did. They recognized Zeva's awakened sight, confronted the fact that they had let the Mouth take this, their youngest warrior, as his catamite with little objection. It was a hard, awkward meeting, and could have been nothing else. Zeva was one of them, but his usage and his death, if it had indeed been true death, set him apart. Vanimórë murmured to the _peredhil_ : “Pitch camp close to him. He may feel more comfortable with us.”

“We did not give him into slavery,” Elrohir said, tight-lipped.

“They know what they did.”

The company settled for the evening, less wary with each league that took them further from Angmar. Small fires were started, packs set down, waterskins filled from a nearby brook. The women, escorted by an armed Aredhel, and Silvan women, moved upstream to wash.

“Sire?” Kashan's face was drawn into anguish. “Sire, none of us did anything. It was not only the boy's kinsmen. But we — it was the same for us in Durthang.”

“Thou wert of Mordor; Malantur could command thee.” Vanimórë had never agreed with the custom of garrison captains taking young soldiers to their beds, but it had seemed impossible to rule against it. It was an old tradition out of Khand, and many youngsters used it as a way of advancing in the ranks. Too, not all the captains were as repulsive as Hrath, sent to an ancient and half-forgotten fortress because he was unfitted for anything more. At times, genuine affection could blossom between the men and their young lovers. When he traveled Mordor, Vanimórë kept an eye out for abuses, and made his displeasure known, which was often enough. But he could not be everywhere.

“Dost thou wish to speak to him?” he asked.

Kashan said, “Yes, Sire.” Then, “The tower ran like molten lead. I felt power, whatever we were told.”

“Coldagnir is a spirit of fire. He served Melkor long ago. Now he strives to make repartition.” Vanimórë glanced down. “Thou didst not enter the temple, never made sacrifice.”

“No, my Lord.” Kashan gazed at Coldagnir, a frown drawing his brows down. “The Mouth did, and his trusted officers.” Visibly, he caught at a shiver, said, seemingly out of nowhere: “He...was trying to look like you, Sire.”

“Yes,” Vanimórë acknowledged, having seen Malantur, and having known him a long time. “There is much old history between us.”

The tribesmen were moving away from Zeva, who looked lost and very young. Coldagnir had come to the youth's side.

“Zeva-Qari,” Vanimórë gave him the title his sight warranted among the Easterners. “Thou knowest Kashan.”

“Yes, my Lord.” Zeva said, and to Kashan: “And I know what you saw.”

Vanimórë's eyes went to Coldagnir, whose head shook.  
_I did not tell him. I did not have to. He saw it. It made him ill._

_He needs to return to his home, to train under the mentorship of another shaman, learn how to block certain visions from his mind._ Vanimórë watched the two young men, then drew Coldagnir aside.  
“Thou didst say what Malantur does is like unto Melkor in Utumno. I doubt Melkor was ever so insane.”

The bronze eyes shifted away from his. “He twisted _life_ , Vanimórë. He delved to the depths of living bodies and dead. No, he was not insane, but he was passionate, driven in his desire to create life.” His fingers curled inward. “The Mouth but emulates him.”

Vanimórë closed a hand about his arm. “He will fall, as Melkor did.”

“Mayhap, but if I face Gothmog,” Coldagnir spoke under his breath. “I will lose. He is stronger — ”

“Stop this now.” Vanimórë's grip tightened. “Nemrúshkeraz.” The eyes lifted. “Fëanor and Fingolfin are bringing an army here. The wood-Elves are allied. Thou wilt not face him alone. Fingolfin fought and wounded Melkor. Thou wert there. How long did Fëanor fight thee and thy kin before he was wounded unto death? It does not matter who is the stronger. If we go into battle believing we will lose, we _will lose._ ”

“I know this,” Coldagnir said flatly. “And I am only telling thee that _I may fail._ ”

Vanimórë was deliberately harsh. “If thou doth fail, Fëanor will go into the Void after thee, and he will not be alone.”

Coldagnir stared, loosed a laugh barren of humour.  
“I wish,” he said. “I were not such a coward. Gothmog was always there, like a shadow at my shoulder, a pressure, claiming me, owning me. I can feel him even now.”

“That I understand.” Vanimórë too had lived under a shadow, had been claimed. He raised a hand, cupped Coldagnir's cheek in his palm. “We all have fears. But listen. Before the Great Music, all the Maia of fire were the same. Thou art the energy that burns in the stars, Nemrúshkeraz. There was no degree of strength or power at the beginning, was there?”

Coldagnir closed his eyes. “It is very difficult to remember that.”

“But thou dost.”

“Of course, but it is _hard._ ”

Vanimórë moved both hands to the Balrog's shoulders. “And almost I can understand that. But thou must reach for what thou wert.”

“The Music...” His voice held echoes. “I looked on the Children, and loved them. I knew they would need fire, and so I...” His dark lashes lifted. His gaze was opaque, looking back to a time before time. “gentled myself. To serve them. In Utumno, Gothmog mocked me, called me a fool whom had lost the greater part of my strength.”

“Thou didst choose to become fire that warmed and lit the night, Gothmog the flame of destruction that burns forests, chars flesh, the fire that kills.” Vanimórë felt the visceral tremour through Coldagnir's muscles. “But even in destruction there is cleansing. Fire cauterizes wounds, allows room for new growth, cleans infestations. He forgot that, Gothmog, as thou hast forgotten that all fire is the same.” He tilted his head. “Thou must remember what thou wert, Nemrúshkeraz. What thou art here, now: Flame in the sky that blinded the orcs of Carn Dûm, that brought down a temple of Melkor, that terrified Malantur to his core.” He shook Coldagnir gently. “I have seen thee in thy glory. Now come, meet others thou didst aid when they were in Carn Dûm. Bainalph felt thy power even in his imprisonment.” 

Coldagnir unspeaking, looked toward the Silvans —  
— And his luminous face blanched as if swept by ice. Vanimórë felt his mind flash. He swung round, saw nothing that would account for Coldagnir's shock. It was a warm evening of singing birds, a quiet wind.

_What in the Hells...?_

_Come with me._ Even Coldagnir's mind-voice sounded stripped of breath. He turned, hand tight on Vanimórë's arm, walked quickly to a swell of land.

_What is it?_ Vanimórë flung out his senses, but Angmar brooded in its cloak of cloud far off.

Coldagnir's eyes swung once more to the Elves.  
_The one with the white hair and eyes. There are others the same._

Vanimórë followed the direction of his gaze. _Yes? He is named Edenel, I believe. Leader of a clan called the_ Gwaith-en-Ithilvorn.

_Is that all thou knowest?_ Coldagnir's brows flicked. _Hast thou looked into his soul?_

_Why would I? It is not a thing I would do lightly, and for no reason._

Coldagnir gripped his arms with both hands as though to keep from falling.  
_When I first saw him,_ he said. _He had hair thine own colour, and iron-grey eyes._

_What?_

_I know him. I know them._ His eyes were huge, filled with flame. _I do not believe it. I cannot... He was in Utumno!_

_Utumno?_

_Captured, tormented, fed with blood..._

Vanimórë imagined the man with that cloudy hair washed black, darker eyes.  
_What in the Hells art thou saying?_

_I told thee that the Mouth but emulates Melkor. It took a long time for him to destroy those Elves, to destroy what they had been, to make them into the first orcs. His first fruits. But there were some..._

Vanimórë grappled with a frisson of ancient horror.

_...Some who fought against it became... _other_ , not orcs to look upon, but not as they had been. Melkor considered them his triumph, his White Slayers. Thou knowest he despised the orcs, his own creations, their grossness. But not his Slayers._ Coldagnir's face quivered. _Because they were beautiful._

_Thou didst see this?_

_Yes. They were trained as thou wert trained. He sent them out, assassins, spies, killers, to the Elves, and then war came, the Valar descended on Utumno. And after, when we who survived came to Angband, we never saw them again._

Vanimórë's mind whirled, chasing Coldganir's words. Sauron had said nothing, but he kept many secrets, told his son only what he needed to know, and the events Coldagnir described were long before Angband and Vanimórë's birth. Utumno had housed Melkor and his forces for eleven thousand years, was so deep and far in the past that Angband, Melkor's lesser fortress had cast its shadow-fire cloak over the very name. To those who kept books of lore it was only that: a name.

He said, tasting old abominations: _I have to look, Coldagnir._

_Yes. Look._

Vanimórë dived through the Balrog's bronze-metal eyes, into fire, the memories of ages, through silent, black sleep under the Orocarni, into Angband, and the dreadful pleasure of slaughter and rape, and further back yet, to a world only the most ancient of the Elves had ever walked, when the very stars made different patterns, to Utumno. Even now, made a god, Vanimórë balked at what he saw. Even knowing it was a vision of the past, he felt fear. Angband had been immense, Utumno dwarfed it, and there was a greater terror in its bones, more ancient. Melkor had come here in all his power, and the stones groaned with it. Passages and chambers curved sleekly as if Melkor's mind had softened the rock malleable as clay to fashion his designs. The roofs were lost in heights that would have reduced a man walking here to insignificance, no more than an ant crawling on the polished floors. Veins of gold, silver, black iron and gems ground flat into floor and wall sparkled in red light. Vanimórë raced down past titan forges, pits of molten ore, to depths where even the memory of starlight was quenched.

He saw Melkor, saw his father, and the long, probing, patient work of unhuman minds. There was no malice in Sauron, only curiosity and the desire to see what he could and could not accomplish. It was he whom had advised Melkor that to kill his captives was less satisfying than to break, than to _change_. They took everything: light and dignity, love and care. They worked with pain, with hunger, and thirst, with lust. They delved into the will to survive, and bent it beyond mending. They broke minds and they broke limbs, plunged into the workings of bodies so unexpectedly resilient.

_To die of abuse or grief was alien then. They were new upon the world. They wanted to live._

Vanimórë watched, time compacted into moments, as the Quendi entered Utumno in their beauty — and what they became.

But not all of them. There were some whom the fires of agony and horror burned white. Their souls screamed them into another kind of purity. They crawled from the crucible of nightmare a strange alchemy of Ainu sorcery and their own indomitable will. Leached of colour, pearl-white of hair and eyes, still beautiful, they were Melkor's White Slayers. Through Coldagnir's memories, Vanimórë was unable to explore their minds, did not know what thoughts lay under the pain-annealed loveliness of their faces.

They walked Utumno, a tight-knit clan trained to a pitch of perfection that Vanimórë realized was a prelude to his own, Ages after. _Trained as thou wert trained,_ Coldagnir had said. It was true.  
_There is nothing unique about me at all._  
He had but walked the path of these pale, changed Elves.

_Melkor and my father, they sought to recreate them. In me._

But by the First Age much of Melkor's powers had been used up, never to return. He could no longer alter captured Elves, and was unable to get offspring. Hence Vanimórë, born of Sauron's seed.

Perhaps Melkor had thought his white Elves would be trusted by their kin, thereby bringing more back to Utumno so that he might experiment with precision and agony, and while many would darken, become, in time, orcish, a few would go through the fires and emerge as diamonds. Melkor sent them out, when he deemed them ready. Vanimórë's vision, linked to Coldagnir's could trace them only so far, as they marched away south. Thus they avoided the war that buried Utumno and shattered the North. They were lead by one whom had been born beside Cuiviénen to the Second Kindred.  
He was Noldo.  
He was Edenel.

 

~~~

  
Edenel.  
  
[](http://tinypic.com?ref=qx44k0)

 

Commission by Insant on DA. http://insant.deviantart.com/


	46. ~ Shadows and Roots ~

**Shadows and Roots**

 

~ They had talked late into the night. Later in sleep came the dream, came the fear. He thrust himself from it and listened, hoping he had not made any sound. No-one stirred. There was only gentle breathing, and from the night beyond, the call of plovers, high and lonely.  
He moved from the ungentle, desirable pillow of warm flesh over muscle, and a hand closed about his arm.

“Where art thou going?” Finrod asked, drowsily sweet.

The lamps were unlit, but bare flesh and tossed pale hair gave forth soft iridescence. The chamber was warm, heavy with perfume and the salt-musk of sex. Air vents in the heavy fabric allowed the the fragrance of dawn to drift in.

Celegorm did not answer, simply pulled free with a jerk that drew a lazy laugh from Finrod's throat, and rose. Their clothes were in an adjacent room. He searched for a pair of breeches, pulled them on and left the pavilion.

Fëanor waited by the stream. Celegorm had felt him when he woke. The dream lingered in his mind like the sour note of a miscast bell, and he walked into his father's arms, held him fiercely. There was a completeness in Fëanor's presence. When he thought of Valinor, Celegorm did not see the death of the Two Trees as its Darkening, but the departure of a light greater than both, and more perilous by far.

“I have thee.”  
Fëanor put an arm around his shoulders, and they strolled without speaking.  
Celegorm leaned into him, the heat and the smell of spices. He was the earth and the morning, the aetheric thunder of the rising sun. He was all. It was enough to be with him.

“What wilt thou do, after?” his father asked at length, giving him time to come to the core of his distress.

“I will come home. Didst thou doubt it?”

White teeth showed briefly.  
“Of course not. Thou art bound to Finrod and he to thee, but has that not always been so? And how do his people react to this marriage?”

Celegorm knew Fëanor had taken his own measure of Finrod's folk, and allowed a smile to tug at his mouth.  
“Most of them are made _acutely_ uncomfortable by it.” The looks he received bothered him not at all. He returned them with mockery. Those same people had turned from Finrod to he and Curufin. “I care naught for them. I think,” he added, “that they know they deserve it.” He stopped, drew away and faced his father. “Even in Nargothrond, when I sought to draw them from him, I despised them.”

“So would I have.”

Celegorm let the frustration rise through his skin from the deep core where it grew and coiled after sex sent it spinning out of shape, into nothingness. Neither rested, the desire, his annoyance.  
“I went into this with my eyes open.”

“But thou didst not think to share him, nor that he would be thy king.”

“ _Thou_ art my king,” Celegorm pronounced, and meant it. “I wanted him to be in the position where he could not refuse me, or pretend to forget.”

“Well, thou hast thy wish.” His father's smile faded. “But it is not as thou didst imagine, is it?”

“No.” Celegorm looked back toward the great pavilion. “He seems to think it amusing.”

“Does he think it amusing when thou art intimate?”

Intimate. No, not then, when they both moved one step past the duel of words that mapped their days. There was no sorcery, no drugs, no orphic rite, only honesty. Or there should have been. Instead there was Finrod, poised and polished, impermeable as the marble he resembled. He did not argue; he turned Celegorm's verbal attacks aside, smiled as if his cousin were a youth indulging in a tantrum. It was this that enraged him, not Glorfindel or Legolas, the times when Finrod was with them, nor the looks of embarrassment and unease that followed him through the camp. Celegorm felt as if his cousin no longer took him seriously. Locked into this odd relationship, rarely apart, Finrod was more remote than he had ever been. This was not the man of the Longest Night, nor Nost-na-Lothion.

As he spoke, Fëanor smoothed his hair, the gentling action sinking through his skin, building a harbour about his heart.

“He takes thee very seriously. Thou art too close to see it.” They strolled on. The camp was stirring; as at Gaear Gwathluin, Finrod's folk rose early to work. Cooks and wine-sellers were setting up their kiosks. Fëanor got cups of light mead, two flat buttered loaves, and they walked back to the stream. People passed them, inclined their heads toward Fëanor, ambiguous but courteous.

“He is simply doing as he did when thou wert in Nargothrond, but now he does it to torment thee, perhaps to show you that thou canst have everything. And nothing. This is his way of punishing both his people and thee.”

“Everything and nothing. Yes.” Even when passion burned away all words, when both of them cried out in the torment of ecstasy, Finrod held himself aloof.

“And he will not discuss what lies between thee before all his people, before Glorfindel, who loves him and is still furious. Rightly,” Fëanor told him. “He would have no right to claim he loves his brother, yet ignore his betrayal.” He put up a hand. “Yes, he betrayed thee also, I know. But a king cannot behave like a child in a temper, no matter how much he may wish to, and neither should a prince. Or only in private.” His smile put the sun to shame.

Celegorm's cheeks heated. That was indeed what he was doing. He was accustomed to arguing with his brothers, and the folk who followed the Fëanorions were themselves used to the family's volatility.

“There is no damned privacy here,” he hissed, and remembered the gallery over Narog, the two wineglasses Finrod always set out. So little time they had had together and now, save the terrible culmination, Celegorm looked back on it with longing.

“That will come, once our homes are built.”

The sun had sailed into the east beyond the mountains, and the colours of the land blushed into summer richness.

“And if thou art uncomfortable, I see those who also look askance at Finrod and Glorfindel.”

But not thou, father, Celegorm thought. He knew. Anything Fëanor felt seemed to reach out to touch his sons. Celegorm knew why his father had come, and was jealous, but that was simply one of the aspects of having Fëanor as a father. He admitted admiration for Fingolfin, and jealousy still pricked through. Yet he far preferred him to Finrod's chill and blessedly absent father.

“I wondered if the _Aran Laer_ had changed something in Finrod,” Celegorm picked at the warm bread. “There was power in it.”

“I know there was,” Fëanor agreed. “Glorfindel showed me, and thinks't thou I did not feel it, through thee? but I do not think it could change what we are. The Void could not strip us of ourselves.” His eyes flared, and Celegorm remembered unwillingly, (for whom of them would remember the Everlasting Dark willingly?) the unending attack of Morgoth's will as it sought to squeeze the fire from their souls, and absorb it. He had failed.

 

“No. This is Finrod's way of having thee where he wants thee. Thou art not the man to give up. It will change. For one thing, as I understand, there are two such rites, one on the Longest Night, when the King _takes._ ”

“Yes.”  
He found himself waiting for that. Finrod played the doe well; there was no lack of response, but Celegorm wanted the Finrod whom had first come from the West, whom had been fierce in rut. He met his father's eyes. Fëanor smiled as if he had never doubted anything in his life, cloaked in absolute surety. Here they were, free in this rich land where the Unbegotten had walked, and Fëanor was High King. And yet...

 _What is wrong with me?_ Celegorm wondered.

He dug into his mind. His father lay at the root of his unease, like an arrow driven deep into heartwood. But to see him now like an unsheathed sword, _as he should be_ , it was almost impossible to recall the time after Finwë's death, when he had been mad.

Mad. That had been Celegorm's dream, or rather a return, so vivid was it, to the past, more terrible than the Void in some ways because, for all his temper, Fëanor had never before lost control.

Celegorm dragged the dream back, allowed himself to feel the bite of dank fog, the distant boom and grind of the ice-floes of the Helecraxë, to see his father breast to breast with Fingolfin, calling him traitor, voice untuned by rage. As the lamps and sullen flames slapped at Fingolfin's face, his eyes widened, seeing that Fëanor was beyond reason. Although he could not admit it then, a splinter of fear had driven under Celegorm's skin.

Because there had always been the unspoken knowledge that Fingolfin alone could influence Fëanor. That certainty, rocked by their clash in Tirion, simmering through the exile to Formenos seemed mended, only to shatter on the mournful shores of Araman like rotten ice. The memory lay as a shadow on Celegorm's heart and, he thought, on his brothers, too. With his immense will controlled, Fëanor could rule the Earth. Uncontrolled, he was a force of destruction that burned inward. His death had been cruel, as if a malicious god had played upon the meaning of his name, as indeed Morgoth had, but not he alone. This was Celegorm's fear: that the Valar, reduced though they were, would never cease wanting his father dead, would seek to drive him mad again.  
They were afraid of him.

As his thoughts moved, Fëanor's unmatched eyes rested on his. They saw everything. He tossed wine cup and bread aside, took Celegorm's face in his hands. So strong those slender fingers, and so gentle.  
“I will never leave thee again.” His kiss was a promise and blessing both.

“I will hold thee to that, father.” His throat was tight. After a few heavy heartbeats, he said, “Thou wouldst not do as Finrod has, wouldst thou?”  
Because there again was a loss of control. Celegorm could not think of that night without arousal, yet neither could he envisage his father giving himself to any and all who wanted him. He thought Fëanor would refuse to give himself to the rite and if not, would fight it.

“Finrod had his reasons. I do not have them. No-one betrayed me.”

“Thou didst think Fingolfin betrayed thee.” The words were out before he could crush them, but he was not inclined to do so. “I dreamed of Araman, father.”

“So. Thou doth fear my madness.” Fëanor laughed, soft and deep. His eyes seized light from the sun and burned gold, unhuman. After a moment, he sobered.  
“I _was_ mad, then,” he admitted. “Fingolfin would never betray me, no more than my sons would. Didst thou think him traitor?”

“We followed thee,” Celegorm said. “Not through fear, but because we loved thee. We were all mad, father. But I could not bear to see thee like that again.” Because it was the breaking of the foundation of his life, his world, and ever after, until his own death, he had sought to find a sure footing. He had done it, they all had, shored up their lives with with the Oath, with love, with defiance, and hate, equal measures of all sewn together by the long scream of outrage that their father was gone.  
“I fear thy madness because it took thee from us. I fear the Valar still want thee dead, will find away to drive thee beyond thyself again.” And so they came to it, the poison needle under Celegorm's skin. “I dreamed of Aman, and the Halls of Waiting. Thou wert standing before them, great gates into nothing, and then thou didst enter. Thou wert fey, father.”

Fëanor walked on, drawing Celegorm with him. Willows made courtesies to the stream. Birds sang all around. The rugged hills were dense with sunrise.

“Thinks't thou it is foresight?” Fëanor asked. “I never trusted it. It seems to me if a man or woman tie themselves to such visions, they will ensure they come to pass.”

“We rejected the Doom, yet it came to pass, as that bastard Námo foretold.”

“I know.” Iron folded itself into Fëanor's tone. “That was not foresight, my dear. It was a promise. Foresight shows what _may_ be.” His gaze was benison, warm as the day. “I saw all my sons before thou wert born. Yet _I_ made the choice to marry.”

Celegorm pulled away to stare at him. He knew his father bent the subject away from his fears, not to avoid the matter, but to cultivate a calmer mood. Those who thought Fëanor a stranger to patience did not know him.

“I dreamed thee even before I met Nerdanel.” He smiled. “I did not think of it as a future set in stone, but I desired it, so ensured it would happen. One might say that I took the quickest path to make my vision come to pass.”

In Valinor, there had always been an unspoken moratorium placed upon certain subjects: Their father's marriage and Fingolfin were never discussed between the brothers. But they had been through the fire since then, and Celegorm asked something he had wondered about since youth.  
“Was there any-one _before..._?”

Fëanor looked into the glinting wrestle of the stream. When he turned his head, his eyes danced and dazzled.

“When I was younger, Finwë took me to Taniquetil.” He swept his free hand in a comprehensive gesture that traced the imagined halls of Ilmarin. “All very fine, and very quiet, the sound of water, distant music. I found it beautiful and damnably dull, but father wanted me to meet Ingwë. They had been friends aforetime.”  
“And I could not imagine why. Ingwë was as some beautiful, animated piece of statuary. His conversation was flat as stale wine. Manwë's footrest, the perfect worshiper and mouthpiece. I set myself to imagine what he would be like were he...human.”

“ _Ingwë?_ ” Celegorm had only ever seen the High King of all the Elves on his rare visits to Ilmarin. The last time, Fëanor had risen and walked out in the middle of one of Manwë's sermons on _obedience_ and _sin_. Celegorm had laughed himself down the mountain. None of the Fëanorions had ever gone back.

Fëanor tugged him down to sit on the grass.  
“Ingwë.” His mouth curled in a memory that seemed to hold mischief. “And then my father informed me that it had been _suggested_ I marry Anairë, a long betrothal as she was a girl, then.” The smile did not vanish but changed utterly, became hard, mocking.

Anairë. Celegorm had not known that, though Finrod had told them how the Valar sought to soften the potency of the House of Finwë by arranging marriages to Vanyarin women.  
“I told Ingwë that if he were offering himself I would be tempted to agree.”

Celegorm had to laugh. “I would give much to have seen his face.”

“It was...amusing,” Fëanor allowed. “Ah, well. He came to Finrod's aid. He is out of the pit now. But then — ” He plucked a strand of long grass, drew the ends over his mouth. “That was the only time I saw Ingwë display any emotion. The Vanyar were lovely, but even then I thought there was something amiss with them. Of course there was; they were suffocated by their closeness to the Valar, twisted from their roots. And I was enraged at the thought of an arranged marriage.” His brows flew inward, and he was silent a moment. He shrugged. “Father and I argued, and I took myself off to Mahtan.” He placed a hand on Celegorm's. “As I said, I had seen thee, my sons. Though my tastes ran, I knew even then, more to men, I also knew I would have to marry to beget children. Nerdanel was easy company. And she was _my_ choice, not the Valars. I do not think they wanted me to breed, or not to another Noldo. They wanted us slaves, or dead. Since we witnessed Finrod's song duel, I am sure of it.”

Finrod had spoken of that, too. His veneer of smiling calm fell away, and Celegorm had seen the strength that had held him against the hopeless depression of Manwë and Námo's duet. There had been a real horror in it, in the loss of identity and will, as if the Valar wished to mould them into identical creatures of soulless clay, mind and passion gone.

“And so, if thou wouldst ask me if I would ever go back, yes. There are those who are worth it. I cannot forget. I do not forgive.” He laid a hand on Celegorm's shoulder. “But this I know: I _will not fail._ ”

“Then this,” Celegorm said slowly. “This is simply an interlude?”

“New Cuiviénen is a gift, a time given back to us. For which I am grateful.” Fëanor lifted his head, eyes embracing the land. “But one day, we will return to Aman. Our business with the Valar will be ended when I say it is ended.” To Celegorm, he seemed to grow yet taller, shedding gledes of brilliance, a presence whose bright shadow stretched across the world.  
“They have been deposed, those who planned and relished out griefs, our deaths. That is not enough for me. I will see them gone to nothing. To _nothing._ ”

And if his own dream had been foresight, in his father's ringing words Celegorm heard _prophecy._

 

 

~~~

He had his father's vision. Even before his apotheosis he had been able to look into the deep crevices, the buried caverns of a soul where wounds still festered, and dark thoughts crouched. He had seen beauty raised like a catafalque over black deeds and desires, but though he sought for it, Vanimórë found nothing dark in Edenel or rather, nothing that he could not find in himself. But no acidity of malice.

His search was imperative, swift and sharp as a surgeons knife. He almost recoiled at what he found, yet why should he be surprised? Edenel _remembered_ just as he, Vanimórë, did. Across the distance, the moon-coloured eyes snapped toward him. He looked away idly, as if it were mere chance, and withdrew from the man's mind.

_He knows. Hells. He knows._

_Yes,_ Coldagnir affirmed. _He remembers. They all do._

Edenel remembered, but had erected a wall between the torment of his corruption and what he had become. He could not forget, but he could seal it away, as Vanimórë did, allowing him to live with some semblance of normality. And sometimes the past still broke through.

 _He has not reacted to thee,_ Vanimórë observed, as he and Coldagnir continued to walk. _Granted, thou art changed, but he knows what thou wert. I told them._

 _We were used to train them, as thou wert trained._ Coldagnir glanced at him, twinned memories in his eyes. Vanimórë saw the Elves, the White Slayers fighting in Utumno, saw himself in Angband. _But I was...different then._

 _True enough._ He would not have known Coldagnir the Maia for Coldagnir the Balrog. _But he knows, if he thinks on it, that thou wert in Utumno, and would have seen him and his companions._

_Perhaps he is like thee, not wanting to recall those times._

They stopped, looked down over the camp, peacefully domestic with cooking fires, the scent of roasting meat.

 _They never told any-one,_ Vanimórë guessed. _Perhaps they were shunned by those of their people they met._

His eyes moved to Elgalad, talking to Beleg. Beleg. He too, was unbegotten, yet he appeared not to know Edenel or those few of his folk who had come north with him. _Appeared_ not to. Beleg carried many secrets behind those pellucid eyes, and part of him ever remained closed, at least to Vanimórë.

 _Melkor would know them,_ Coldagnir warned. _The sorcerer did not see them, but if he does, and Gothmog looks through his eyes —_

 _Melkor would be interested in his former slaves. Yes. But would he not have tried to call them to heel when he was in Angband? And clearly he failed, or_ he amended, _I knew nothing of it._

Coldagnir shook his head. _No more do I; that would be between he and thy father. I never knew any that returned, but I did not know all that passed either in Utumno or Angband._

Vanimórë started back down the slope.  
 _I should talk to Edenel. Warn him._ But how in the Hells could he bring the subject up? What would he think of any-one who tried to probe into his own past? Yet he could not but help feel an affinity to these men and women who had endured so much more than he, whom had not been broken but transcended their torment.  
 _Something I never did._  
 _Thinks't thou he has not thought of it?_ Coldagnir said.

Kashan had lead Zeva to sit beside a fire where Narok and Vaija sat, a plump grouse cooking on a spit. The Uruk-hai had settled further away, and Vanimórë heard Vixen laugh at something Lion said, a curiously relaxed sound. She folded her arms, glared at Lion, who mock-meekly speared a haunch of deer and settled it to roast. Vanimórë would have to spend more time with them if he was going to take them to Umbar, and he would; if Dana suggested something it was never purely on a whim. He would have to overcome his long-ingrained repugnance of their orcish blood, and see them as she apparently did. He put a hand under Coldagnir's elbow and lead him to where the Imladrians had camped. They greeted Coldagnir as they had Zeva, with a warmth that brought relief to his face. He was, Vanimórë knew, still unsure of their acceptance, or perhaps memories of Utumno had fanned the flames of old guilt. After Elgalad had embraced him with a complicated, blushing smile, Vanimórë tilted his head and said, “I must speak with thee.”

The smile faded. Elgalad looked at him searchingly, and nodded. They walked without haste along the course of the stream. Elgalad slid his fingers over Vanimórë's hand.  
“Something troubles thee. I saw th-thee talking to Coldagnir.” He spoke almost under his breath, knowing well how keen were the ears of his kin.

“I have to ask thee a question,” Vanimórë said, as quietly. “And it concerns the Wood. There may be secrets, vows that bind thee, and if so I respect that, and will not look into thy mind.”

Elgalad stopped, his brows dipping, then began to walk again.  
“Very well.”

 _How well dost thou know the_ Gwaith-en-Ithilvorn?

The frown lingered, but Elgalad answered readily enough: _I know Edenel. I have fought with him at whiles. I was —_ He fluttered his free hand, _Invited to partake in their ancient rites._ Colour kissed his cheeks, and Vanimórë interpolated: _Thou needst say naught of that. I mean rather, knowest thou where they are from? Do they speak of their life before they came to the forest?_

 _No._ Elgalad glanced back to the camp. _They were there before Oropher, so Legolas told me. Why?_

 _I wish to know if they hide their past._ Their eyes met again, clung. _Thy face tells me it is so._

The silence spun deep between them. At last Elgalad said, _They do not speak of it. But Edenel sang a song to me once. It...tells their tale. I do not know why he confided in me._ He glanced away. The sun stroked his face, and Vanimórë thought: _He told thee because there is great pain in him, and healing in thee. Both of us feel that, and we are not alone._ Coldagnir had gone to him for healing, to Vanimórë for the Anguish. That was telling.  
 _He swore thee to silence._

 _He did not need to._ The dew-coloured eyes flashed to his again, penetrating, even stern. Vanimórë placed two fingers over his mouth.  
 _I will not have thee compromise thy conscience._

Elgalad's lips stirred into a kiss against his flesh.  
 _Thou hast no need to ask me, dost thou?_ His smile was a caress, but did not wholly banish his gravity. He moved a little away, stood still, and Vanimórë saw him look toward the camp, to Edenel. The meeting of their eyes held a thousand words he did not choose to overhear. Elgalad's head moved in acknowledgement.

“He wants me to tell thee.”  
Vanimórë saw Edenel begin to walk unhurriedly toward them. When Elgalad began to speak, the _Ithiledhel's_ voice echoed the words like whispers from the past, the ghosts of mourners lingering at some long-lost tomb.

_Under the world, the starlight shattered,_  
But soul knew not how to fade.  
The fire took our life and gave it,  
Spat us forth into freedom,  
Wearing chains,  
And pain in our bones.  
Changed and unchanged.  
Then all the Earth quaked,  
And the sky blew winds of flame,  
The Moon hid in ash,  
And clouds made of Night,  
The Sun turned its face from the world.  
So we wandered,  
Until the stars returned.  
But the Dark knew our blood,  
And so we drank it,  
And became.  
Lost. Forgotten. Alive. 

Under the world. Utumno meant _underworld_ in Quenya. Broken starlight. It did indeed tell the _Ithiledhil's_ tale.

 _Others know,_ Elgalad said. _A few, Edenel told me. Thranduil, Legolas, Bainalph, I think. But it is not spoken of._

 _What didst thou think?_ Vanimórë asked.

The evening breeze flirted between them, it smelled of gorse and moss, of summer in the north. There should be no ancient shadows here. But there was. Elgalad's mouth compressed. Again, he looked past Vanimórë, at Edenel.

 _I thought...they might have been thralls in Angband. I remembered the tales I heard in Imladris, that sometimes such captives were sent out by Morgoth as spies, and even those who escaped in truth were mistrusted and shunned._ His lashes dropped. _It seemed cruel, if understandable. If the Ithiledhil were once..._ He gripped Vanimórë's wrist, hard. _It is true, is it not? Didst thou...know them, there?_

 _No,_ Vanimórë said. _I did not know them. But Coldagnir does. They are older than I. They were thralls, yes, but not of Angband. Of Utumno._

Elgalad face froze. He did not move as Vanimórë related what Coldagnir had shown him, whereat a shiver lashed him, stirred him from the frost of shock.

 _They are the first ones, those who Morgoth took to corrupt into orcs? And they defied him?_ Fury illuminated his eyes. _As thou didst._ Triumph and horror twinned in his voice. He caught at Vanimórë's arms.

 _They are nothing like me,_ Vanimórë refuted. _I have Maia blood, it made me stronger, and yet_ I _could not resist until Sauron was gone into the Void. These_ Ithiledhil... _Eru only knows how they survived, became what they are._

Elgalad shook him. _As the_ Ithiledhil _fought, so didst thou. And thy blood shackled thee to Sauron. They had no such familial bond. When they were given the chance of freedom, they broke their chains._ He lifted one hand, traced the contours of Vanimórë's face, and his touch was sweet fire. _What dost thou fear? They would never serve the Mouth, or whomever...possesses him. They have a history of fighting the servants of the dark the most viciously of all the folk of the Wood._

_I do not fear he would serve Malantur, no, but that those who possess him — and yes, Gothmog will, in the end, take his body — will recognize the _Ithiledhil_ and seek to master them, to call them back to servitude._

Elgalad said, _Hast thou thought that they might also try to compel_ thee?

Yes, he had. He pressed indifference into his eyes, made them blank as he answered, _Perhaps that is why I was given power. To resist them._

_Do you not think that resistance can be achieved save through power?_

Elgalad's grip fell away. He had heard the words too, and stepped forward to greet Edenel. Any-one observing would think it a casual meeting.

 _Thou hast surpassed me._ Vanimórë sought to look past those strange eyes that would have seemed like those of a blind Man but for the shadings and glints of colour. The _Ithiledhil's_ torment had burned them to this pallor, this otherworldly beauty.  
He drew back, all-too aware that he craved affinity, a shared intimacy of malefic pain as, perhaps, he had with Maglor. But such a need was weakness, an admittance that another's suffering offered balm. He smothered it, locked it away.  
 _What thou art,_ he said, bitter as oak-gall. _Is the consummation of Melkor's desires. I was the best they could do, he and Sauron, with a great measure of his power gone. But thou wert his triumph. I do not know how thou didst survive or resist him._

Edenel studied him, shook his head, and gestured. “Let us walk,” he said, and after a time, began to speak.

“I knew Coldagnir was in Utumno. And so? The Valaraukar were many then, some lesser, some greater, such as he whom was called Gothmog. And as you know, they looked very different.” He cast a glance at Vanimórë. “They were not permitted to touch us, after. No-one was, though we trained against them, and other things — our own changed kin at times.”

Elgalad's face was tight with anger. Edenel smoothed his hand down the suave cheek. There was a familiarity in his touch.  
“How did we survive, become what we are?” His mouth lifted in a faint smile. “The same way you did, Vanimórë. I was at Dagorlad, at the siege of the Dark Tower. I guessed what you were and later, in the Wood — ” He spoke to Elgalad. “I was able to look into your mind and memories of him. For that trespass I apologise, but just as he is curious about me and mine, so was I of him. I did not know that you,” his eyes returned to Vanimórë, “were Gorthaur's get, though I did guess there was power within you. A man who could outface the Úlairi as if they were nothing? That is rare.”

“Glorfindel too could outface them, and I think,” Vanimórë said, “that thou couldst, also.”

“I could,” Edenel agreed. “I have. They have never trespassed into the woodland realm. Thranduil's power over the Wood is the greatest protection, but we _Ithiledhil_ do our part.” he shrugged. “And you have guessed by now that it was we who planted the fear of Elves into the orcs.”

It was indeed a path Vanimórë's mind had followed.

“I have fought w-with thee,” Elgalad exclaimed softly. “Thou hast n-never done what the Uruk-hai, Vixen, spoke of: the d-drinking of souls.”

“Not now. The orcs became their own race, and most have Mannish blood.  
They are not our broken kin, but their own race.” He looked from one to the other. “But then, when we came upon them we slew them slowly to absorb their souls, and ate their hearts. It was a way of claiming them back.”

He sounded perfectly pragmatic, but Vanimórë was too well-versed in concealing pain to be fooled. Neither was he shocked. Elgalad's expression showed pity. Vanimórë allowed the silence that followed to carry understanding, because he could imagine the grief in such an act of hate and love. He said, “The People of the Black Moon. Didst thou name thyself that?”

Edenel bent his head. “I did. When we were sent forth from Utumno, we went south. War came. The Sun and Moon vanished. There were earthquakes and tempests, floods. It was hard even for us to survive, and survival consumed us, because after what we had endured, we were determined to live. But you understand better than any-one.” He paused, then: “And why we did not rejoin our people.”

“Yes.” Vanimórë did understand. “Thou didst see thyself as stained.”

“We wanted reunion almost before our lives. We had been ordered to find them, bring them back to Utumno. But we felt the power in that war, knew that Utumno was gone, that _he_ was also gone.” Edenel had walked into memory, and Vanimórë knew his yearning: to belong to a people amongst whom he felt he had no place.  
“We watched our kin from a distance,” he said. “And killed the orcs and wolves, the other dark creatures Melkor had sent forth. Cuiviénen was not as some tales have it, or only in the beginning. But perhaps even we Elves need our myths.”

Elgalad asked, “What was it l-like?” Vanimórë had told him the legend of the Awakening as he had heard it in Angband. It was not true as he now knew, although there was a certain poetry in the legend.

Edenel smiled at him, eyes still in the deepest past.  
“Has Beleg not told thee? We woke and we _knew_. How to live, how to hunt for food, to weave and make. Names came into our minds like birds alighting. There was such a joy in discovering the world. We never counted the days and nights,* and so I do not know much time passed until the Shadows found us.” His shoulders stiffened as if a cold hand touched his back. “And we learned how to fight, using our bodies, the bows and spears and knives we had fashioned to hunt. But at whiles some strayed and did not return.” A door slammed shut behind his eyes. “When our kin returned we heard snatches of tales, and later I saw them, how their nature had been bent awry, I could not but be glad I never went West, though it meant separation from my brother, perhaps forever.”

Vanimórë shared a glance with Elgalad. This mattered. There was a purpose to Edenel's wandering speech. Like a statue illuminated by lightning, Vanimórë saw Edenel before he was taken, broken and remade: jet hair, eyes polished silver-black, a distinctive tilt of brow. He turned his head back to look at the camp, and Vanimórë followed his gaze to another who shared the exquisite hard line of cheek and jaw. He felt his breath stop. Incredible how the pearl-white hair and eyes drew attention away from what had never changed.

“Brother?” Elgalad asked. “I th-thought...Art thou n-not like Beleg, of the Unbegotten?”

 _Beleg. He knows. Or guesses somewhat._

“I am. But when I woke my hand lay in another's, and he was my reflection in face and form. We were born twins, though of no womb but the Earth's. And there are yet twins born of our blood.”

On those words, Elgalad knew. His lips parted.

“They call him Finwë now,” Edenel said.

 

~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Regarding the myth of ancient starlight without the sun and moon, although it's very beautiful to imagine, this has been thrashed out by people who have a scientific background, and it does not work. At the very least it wouldn't have been a planet that could have supported for instance Doriath and the First Elves. I prefer the 'dome' theory: The Valar placed a dome over Aman so that the Trees illuminated it, not the sun and moon, but the sun and moon did exist prior to that, and were over Middle-earth - the first rising of the moon and the sun as told in the Silmarillion were simply the first time the Noldor had seen them, and the tale of Arien and Tilion was simply myth. The Elves knew a lot about their world, but no doubt were wonderful story-tellers. Tolkien himself was going to change that mythology, but never got around to it.
> 
> Thank-you for reading. If you like anything, a review or comment is very much appreciated. :)


	47. ~ The Dark-shattered Past ~

~ “Thou didst fight with the Last Alliance but not seek thy kin. Not then, nor aforetime.”

“Would you have?” Edenel asked.

Vanimórë did not even have to consider.  
“No.” He had wanted to, had wished, when his father ravaged Eregion, that he might be captured, made a prisoner of war, considered giving himself up. Shame for what he was, fear that the Elves would despise him, stayed his hand.

“Thou canst not think that they w-would have believed thee in thrall.” Elgalad's exclamation turned Edenel's eyes to him with a faint, questing smile.  
“After Annatar's deception in Ost-in-Edhil? I am not so sure. And it was not the first time I had seen my kin.” Edenel paused. Vanimórë did not press him. He would not wish any-one to urge him into his own past.

“The Ithiledhil became a clan in Utumno.” Teeth clenched over the name. “I was made their captain, and they kept me for their leader, after. It was they who named me Edenel, when the first stars swam forth from the storm-wrack.” A shrug from wide shoulders that had carried too much. “Much as we longed to return to our people, we were changed.”

Vanimórë understood. But Edenel was not he, born of dark sorcery.  
Except, in a way, he was; he and all the White Slayers.

“Had the war not come, had Utumno not been broken I would have done so,” Edenel said. “It would have been the excuse I needed. We knew Utumno, and the might of Melkor's forces, but we did not know Angband, only rumour of it. So we followed the tribes who made the Great Journey, as it came to be called, at a distance. Seeing them was better than naught, or so we told ourselves. A sip of water to quench a summer drought.”

 

Edenel stopped beside the stream, went down in a crouch to scoop water into his hands. He drank, then pulled aside his heavy braid exposing a brand or tattoo at the base of his neck: a black serpent, tail in its mouth, eyes of red. It was an old, old symbol predating Vanimórë's birth, but he had seen it before, in the East and South. Destruction and creation, never-ending. Was that how Melkor had truly seen himself? In the Wars of the Shaping of Arda, he had destroyed; did he think his tampering with Life made him a creator? There was another way one could look at the sigil, however: a ravenous force that ate itself when there was nothing left to feed on.

Vanimórë did not presume to touch the brand. For such it was, like the stamp of the Red Eye at the base of his spine. His burning in Fos Almir had not scoured it away. He did not know why.

 

“I thought nothing on this Middle-earth or beyond it could sever the bond with my brother.” Edenel rose. “But Utumno broke it.” Emotions ran under his skin, a memory of all-encompassing agony of the body, the mind, the soul. Vanimórë reached out to him. There were some things that should never be endured.

“We should walk.” Edenel's fingertips brushed Vanimórë's, then fell. “There are those who might wonder what we have to say to one another, you and I.”

“Thou art a friend of Elgalad's,” Vanimórë responded. “No-one will wonder.”

Edenel rested a hand on Elgalad's shoulder. “I would say you cannot know — but of course you can — how his presence heals. It is rare.” He smiled, and a smile from such a man was as rare, Vanimórë thought. “And he does not judge.”

“I wish thou h-hadst told me.”

“I did. To share such a tale is to place a burden on the one who hears it. I told you enough, my dear.”

It doubtless had been enough. Elgalad had seen glimpses of Vanimórë's life. His imagination was more than capable of building a picture of horror around Edenel's past. He said, “Does Thranduil know the t-truth?”

Edenel did not answer until they had crossed the stream, moving in a wide arc that would take them back toward the camp. His words wove into the warm, bright evening, the song of the wind.

“Thranduil knows what you knew,” he said. “As the Wood, he sensed something alien in us, something...” He flicked a hand. “Unelvish.”

“Thou art Elven,” Elgalad protested.

“I did not say we were not, neither did Thranduil. What he sensed was Melkor's touch. It left its mark.”

“Power always leaves its mark,” Vanimórë murmured.

“Thranduil came into his own power gradually.” Edenel bent his head gracefully in acknowledgement. “It was not until he embraced the old ways, the rites of the Summer and Winter king that he approached me until, I think, he sensed our strangeness in his blood. But we had dwelt in the forest since before he and his father came. He knew us.” The full lips shaped an ironic half-smile. “Or thought he did. What were we? he asked. What was the shadow in our shadows.”

His own was flung long by the westering sun. In it, Vanimórë saw a figure writhing in bonds, head thrown back in a silent scream. He dragged his eyes away, looked at the one whom had come through the first Hells. The Underworld.

“I told him we had been thralls, that it had changed us. I sang him the song. Whatever his reservations — and he did have them — he chose to trust us.”

“Because he knew he c-could, whatever thy history.”  
Vanimórë ached with the depth of love, of pity in Elgalad's voice, at how he reached out to the most incurable pain without fear. “And as Bainalph is Alphgarth h-he also knew?”

“Somewhat. Perhaps before Thranduil did, but he was young, and said naught. He was embracing his own powers. Taking root in Alphgarth where we had lived for a very long time.” There was something ancient and feral in Edenel's smile, then. Power always leaves its mark. If Elgalad gave healing, Bainalph's beautiful submission would sate another hunger.

“They both accepted us. But I run ahead of myself.”

Vanimórë reined in his curiosity. He could not pursue this. There was titanic pain in Edenel, abyssal and festering. His soul had knit scar tissue over it, but to probe that wound was cruel.  
He said, “Thou needst not speak of it further.”  
And received lifted brows in response.

“Think you I would speak of it lightly? Or to one whom would not understand? Would you prefer,” he asked courteously. “That I not speak of this to you?”

“I would not have thee trouble that wound. I can look, and cause thee no pain.”

“No pain.” The two words were flat and brittle as shale, the edges jagged with black laughter. “We do not speak of it among ourselves.”

“No.” And so it would forever be a raw and gaping maw in their lives around which they walked with care.

“Is it too great a burden?”

Vanimórë closed his eyes.  
“No. But I cannot heal it.”

“We both know how it is to live with wounds that can never be healed.”

True enough.

“I am honoured. But there are those of thy kin who would understand.” Vanimórë tilted his head toward the camp. “Lómion. If his body did not suffer torment, his soul did in the Void. The sons of Finwë and theirs. Three generations of them.”

“My kin.” The words sounded remote, as if spoke them into a great distance. Then, in a quite normal tone: “I would like to bathe if there is a place.” He quickened his stride. Elgalad slowed, touched Vanimórë's arm. He did not say anything, but his eyes held a question.

I will hear him, Vanimórë said. And so wilt thou, and of the two of us I think thou canst give him more comfort than I, as thou didst Coldagnir.

No, my dear Lord. Elgalad shook his head There are different kinds of healing, of comfort. Thou hast known the same suffering as Edenel. Slave of the Dark. I have not.

Vanimórë let out a slow breath. I have found, in my life, that it is too easy to take unhealthy pleasure in another's pain. One victim can look upon another and feel it was not only them. There is a dark and bitter satisfaction in it.

Thou art confusing empathy with satisfaction, Elgalad looked startled, almost angry. Wilt thou allow thyself nothing?

I will not salve my memories with the agony of others. He kissed Elgalad's brow, held him tightly for heartbeats, his talisman against what he would hear on this quiet summer evening.

They found a pool gnawed in the rocky land where the stream flowed wide and idle. Less than waist-high, it was yet sufficient for them all. They unbound their braids, laid aside their clothes and stepped in, kneeling to let the cold water soak into their hair. It fanned out like seaweed, sable and white and silver. Vanimórë noted how Edenel's battle-tattoos did not smudge or run, wondered if the Ithiledhil had been the first to wear them.

“We followed the kindreds to the edge of the Great Sea.” Edenel slicked back his hair. “We watched as the last of them departed into the West. I wished then I had spoken to my brother.” An understatement. “After a while, we travelled south to the forest called Taur-in-Duinath. That was a time of peace. We needed it. We learned to love the world again.” He blinked heavy lashes. There was an opulence in the way he appreciated the water, the fragrant air, and Vanimórë recalled his own wonder at life, beauty, his discovery that there was more than Angband, more than slavery.

“And then Melkor returned.”

His eyes met Vanimórë's.

“He called to thee.”

A nod.

“And thou didst resist him.”

Little wonder no-one had been sent to find Melkor's White Slayers. He must have believed, understandably, that he could retrieve them himself.

“We vowed to,” Edenel said, temperless. “Blood oath.”

The river rustled, clean and free, the evening birds sang, untroubled.

“He wrought better than he knew,” Vanimórë said almost under his breath. The beautiful ghostly eyes held his, unblinking, and Vanimórë felt Edenel's strength, a power forced brutally into soul and sinew in the cavernous guts of Utumno.

“Thou didst break from his will long before then.” At the moment of becoming, of transcending their torment, when Melkor thought he had bound them to him they had, paradoxically, freed themselves.

Edenel cupped water in his hands, gazed into it.  
“My awakening was not like the times before.” He frowned as if the water were a scrying-glass into the past. Vanimórë hoped it was not. “I did not know whom or what I was for a long time. The things that were done to us, that we were forced to do. I did not want an identity.” He rose in a slick of running moisture, all long, sleek muscles, waded to the bank, and sat cross-legged on the greensward.

Vanimórë's guts clenched hard. He felt Elgalad's hand on his back as he joined Edenel. The sun was warm, kind to their wet skin. He wrung out his hair, twisted it roughly into a knot. His body flinched with memory.

“You would take it, would you not?” Edenel laid a hand on his chest. “Add it to your own pain. Elgalad would drink it and absorb it, and it would leave no mark upon his stainless soul. Do not. It is a part of me, my history.”

Vanimórë could not speak. He might have said those very words. We cling to our torments. We have at least earned that.

Edenel braided his hair with slow, methodical fingers. “We knew little of pain, of fear before then. Melkor offered us a choice: To own him as our god and master, or to become his slaves. We refused — until they began the tortures, made us watch. I think they wanted to see how far from ourselves we could fall, what extremes we could be driven to until we broke. What we would do.” His hands stilled. “The answer is everything. In the end we did everything. We became less than beasts, and so we sent our minds away.”

“Yes.” Vanimórë put his hands over his eyes. The darkness swam and sparkled. I do not want to go there. To Utumno, to where it began, to walk in Edenel's footsteps. He seized the compulsion to withdraw, flung it aside, and slammed back the doors in his mind. He was naked and effectless here. No power could conquer the past.

“So many experiments. How much pain could we stand, how quickly did wounds heal, did they ever rot and fester? What could we eat and not vomit up? What would we rut with. How many times could we be raped before we were broken.”

Vanimórë dropped his hands. Nausea rose in his throat, his nerves bayed a cacophony of anguish, bones groaned and muscles spasmed, raw tissue shrieked. Pain could drive one mad, and it had. Many times. Pain made rotten by disgust and loathing could tear the soul apart.

In another world he saw Elgalad move, a creature of silver, of love, and place a hand on Edenel's shoulder. He felt the other on his own, warm, strong, anchoring him to the future he had never believed he would have.

“How long would it take for us to become what Melkor wanted,” Edenel said. “And that I do not know. I came out of a place of white fire, and knew myself, remembered who I was, and all that had happened. I was bound. My throat was sore. Screams echoed in my memory. My body felt racked. And they were watching me, power like flame and thunder against my soul.”  
“Melkor took my chin in one hand and looked at me. And he smiled.”

The flags of Angband's throne hall were warm and smooth under Vanimórë's knees. Melkor gripped his chin, smiling. He was made nothing by that smile.

“They spoke to one another in a language I did not understand, and then I was taken away.” Edenel's mouth twisted in an odd grimace. “The chamber was luxurious. I did not expect that. I was given food and drink and left alone save when Sauron came to examine me. I was in no fit state then to fight, and so I healed, waited. Even had I been able to escape, I would not leave the others.”

Vanimórë shifted painfully to kneel before him. Elgalad had bowed his head as if praying to some power who admitted to pity, who cared. Who, what had cared when the Elves screamed in Utumno, torn from their very souls? Had those screams even been heard?

“I heard it said, and indeed I have seen Elves die of grief, of rape.” Edenel held his voice to that uncanny control. “But then, we were new upon the Earth. I did not know how to will myself to die.”

In the end, Morgoth Bauglir, Vanimórë vowed. I will drag thee from the Void and devour thy soul.

“At first, remembering what I had done, what I had been, I wanted to vomit up myself, to become some-one else.”

Yes.

“But in the end, I healed.” He spoke as if he were talking of some-one else, barely known, scarce remembered. “And I was taken back to the lower chambers. I was terrified. I thought they sought to break me again. There were other...experiments there. I had seen them...made. Animals, Elves. Things such as you saw in Angmar.” His hands clenched about the thick braid. The sun glanced white from his knuckles. “Elves that were no longer human, that had been melded with others, sewn together by sorcery and thread, rivets of metal. Yet they lived.” Only then did a tremor rock his voice.

Vanimórë set his hands on the straight shoulders. Both of them were trembling.

“Sauron walked past them like a king who does not deign to notice his court.”  
Ah, yes. Vanimórë saw it in his mind: the aloof arrogance of his father's stride, the carriage of his head. Horror slid off him like rain from a swan's wings.  
“Past pits where beast and Elf mated, rooms where blood and screams made the air reek. I tried to hide my fear, but Sauron saw it. He smiled and said, 'Put fear aside. Thou art far too rare to risk now. The Lord Melkor has marked thee for another destiny.' ”  
“There were others, after me. We did not speak of what had happened. We were trained, and we waited, became the White Slayers. I do not believe it occurred to Melkor that our minds were free. It should have. I still consider that one oversight incomprehensible. His arrogance blinded him.”

There was movement as Elgalad's head came up. Vanimórë looked at him, saw his eyes distant, as if hearing a far-off voice. For no reason he could comprehend he thought of Coldagnir's radiance after Elgalad had possessed him. Puzzled, he brushed the image away.  
Sauron should have seen, he thought. And I think he did. Is that what gave him the idea to breed offspring of his own, to bind them to him with ties of blood?

“And so,” Edenel continued. “we were sent out of Utumno on our mission. When I saw the stars again, I would have opened my throat before returning.”

He was silent for a long time, neck bent in a graceful curve. Music drifted from the camp; a harp played with passion, old sorrow. Tindómion. He had his father's gift. Edenel raised his head.

“When Melkor returned, we travelled north. The news from the West came to us slowly, from the tribes of Ossiriand and the Grey Elves who wandered in Beleriand. Thus I learned that my brother was dead, slain by Melkor.” His face went still. “I wept because I had not known it. I wanted to see them, the House of Finwë, they whose names were as a trump to battle. I heard of Fëanor, of the Oath. Of his death. We went to the great feast of Mereth Aderthad. We could pass as Grey Elves if one did not look too close. There were many of those who attended, and some were our friends. We went among the camps at night as one of them.”

“And never spoke to the Noldor.”

“I did not say that.”

Vanimórë quelled his curiosity. If Edenel wanted him to know, he would tell him.

“They were spirits of flame and vengeance. Like gods. Beautiful and doomed. And one after another, they fell. But for chance, they might have been my descendents.”

What could one say to that?

“We were cursed from the beginning, my brother and I. And I still do not know why.”

“Because you were created free.” Vanimórë tried to imagine himself as Ainu, before Time, watching Eru's vision of Elves and Men. “How could Melkor or his kind have power save over thee? They might raze the mountains, displace the seas, but that pales in comparison with the look in the eyes of a human, and the thinking mind behind them, the knowledge. They fear and rage, but thou art stronger, can enslave and break them, make them suffer for their freedom. Melkor punished thee in one way, the Valar another, curtailing that freedom with pettifogging Laws saying, 'Thou wilt not do that, but this.' Control. In the end it is always about control.”

“You do not speak from experience,” Edenel noted, frowning.

“I speak from the experience of knowing both Melkor and Sauron,what they wanted. Is it not true?”

“It is true.”

“But there is an inborn desire for freedom in both Men and Elves, and they were willing to kill for it, to die for it.”

Elgalad watched him. Something in his face took the words from Vanimórë's mouth. He sat back, gathered them again.  
“That must have irked both Melkor and the Valar. Men could slip away after death. Elves were less fortunate. I think it was wrong to appoint any Power judge of the dead. But so it was, and the full weight of vengeance fell upon those who could not escape.”

Edenel glanced back, though the camp was hidden by the rough shrugs of the land.  
“I heard of that punishment a long time ago. I did not believe it. How could any-one? Then came the Last Alliance. I did not see nor hear the one they name Manwë pronounce judgement on Gil-galad, but I felt him; cold, and cramped and merciless. How could I not? It was too similar to Melkor's presence. Another dragged Gil-galad's spirit into the dark. Mandos, I assume.” His rage shone forth like a beacon for a moment, as if he had flung back the shutters that guarded his soul. “But what comfort could I offer those who wept for him? I was not even one of them any-more. We know what we are, we Ithiledhil. ”

“Thou art survivors,” Vanimórë told him. “Thou didst come from the crucible with thy souls intact.” Edenel made a sound of derision. “Thinks't thou thy kin would not own thee?”

“My kin. Melkor took away our kinship to any-one but each other. That is why we vowed to fight him when he returned. I did not feel my own twin's death. No matter that he had gone oversea. I should have felt it.” His jaw was tight, compressing pain and passion into flatness. Vanimórë recognised the control it took.

“If my brother had returned... He did not. And I asked myself why?”

“I do not know,” Vanimórë replied after a pause. “Not without looking, which I am loathe to do without good reason. But I think I might guess.”

Edenel stared straight ahead. His profile, in the mellow-gold light, was fierce, beautiful, unmistakably Finwëion.  
“I would guess he felt guilt, thought he should never have lead his people to Valinor. But on Middle-earth he had lost me. He would have blamed himself.” A frown drew down his winging brows. “We had argued, and I said we should set some space between us, that he should spend time with Miriel. After I vanished, the prospect of a land at peace, far from the dangers of Middle-earth world must have appealed to him. To lead his people to a safe haven...Where they were caged, where his wife died, and the Doom of the Noldor was born.” He wrenched viciously at his hair. “Yes, he will feel guilt. I knew him once. I would feel the same.”

“The Valar have no power over the Elves any longer,” Vanimórë said. “Finwë has his reasons for staying, but thou couldst go to him.”

“When I go to Valinor it will be to put a blade at the throats of those who damned the souls of the Elves.” Edenel's eyes held white flame. “Who did nothing while Melkor made us into beasts, broke us as if we were naught. How can he who was my brother remain there?”

Vanimórë laid a gentling hand on his. Edenel's fingers quivered. The hard tugging ceased.  
“The Noldor would accept Finwë as High King. From what Glorfindel has told me, Finwë wanted his son to take that title. He unkinged himself for Fëanor once before.”

“I heard that story. Fëanor.” Edenel pronounced the same slowly, as something alien and wondrous.

“He was here,” Vanimórë said. “Last night. Glorfindel brought Fingolfin and he from New Cuiviénen. They wished to see Maeglin. Lómion, we must call him now.”

“I felt something,” Edenel said. “It sent me out into the night. I did not recognise it. I should have. You see, I am not their kin. I have not been since Utumno.”

“Thou art.” Elgalad refuted. “No-one could take th-that from thee. No-one.”

“Melkor took it.”

Vanimórë said, “I understand thee. But they would not. The Finwii claim their kin, Edenel.”  
Thou didn't not know of this? he asked Glorfindel. Whom had listened from the beginning. Vanimórë had asked him to.

No.

Their powers were matched. There had been a flash of a moment in Fos Almir when Vanimòrë had known everything, and Glorfindel, he knew, would have experienced the same epiphany. But to live upon Arda within form required certain sacrifices. They could look and see, but if they remained open to it, the overwhelming influx of information would overwhelm them. They would cease to be human.

“The Ithiledhil are my kin.” Edenel's eyes searched Vanimórë's. “They are my family. Bonds are not forged by blood alone.”

“Thou art right,” Vanimórë agreed. “But the blood of the House of Finwë is a potent force in and of itself.”

“Then do not stir it.” The faint smile held more yearning than Edenel perhaps knew. “For I think they do not know that my brother ever had a twin. Let it remain so.”

I never knew that he did, Glorfindel spoke. A twin soul, torn asunder. That would explain many things to me. There was always some-one missing.

“I will say naught to them,” Vanimórë promised. “But Fëanor and Fingolfin will bring an army in a few years. They will fight Angmar alongside Imladris and the Wood, and if they see thee they will know thee. No Finwëion is a fool. The others have not been close to thee, Tindómion, Lómion, Elrond's sons with their Noldor bloodline. To them thou art warriors of Thranduil, but if they were to truly look at thee?” He raised his brows.

“I have done my best to avoid them. I will continue to do so. Though it is impossible not to look at them.”

Vanimórë clasped his wrist.  
“What good is power if one cannot fold time backward, and unmake evil?” he wondered, and choked his inability to do anything that mattered. “Thou hast trusted me with thy history, and I am unequal to its sorrow.”

His grip was returned, strong, sinewy.  
“I looked into your eyes,” Edenel said. “Your soul walked with mine into the abyss, and stayed with me through my memories, through your own remembered torment. You are more than equal. I thank you.”

Vanimórë embraced him, held him in a grip like death and rebirth.  
And thou, he thought were also more than equal. Melkor may call, but he will never have thee again.

“I would ask,” he murmured. “What was thy first name?”

Edenel spoke into his hair.  
“My brother named me Élernil,” * he said.

~~~

 

Cool and pale the palace of Tirion. Quiet blue shadows lay in the courts and gardens. Arafinwë was gone to Ilmarin. He went (or was summoned there) frequently since his eldest son bested Manwë and Námo, broke their stupefying song.

Ingwë had not visited Tirion since Fëanáro's birth, not until the son of Sauron found ingress into Valinor holding a Silmaril in his hand, until Eru Himself broke the hegemony of the Valar. Waking from an age-long dream, emotion and self-awareness returning, the High King had battled to free himself from the double assault of Manwë and Varda, at whose feet he had knelt like a beggar who knows his place.

He had forgotten his own strength, the qualities that earned him leadership beside the waters of Cuiviénen, and he suffered no illusions as to why the Valar had proclaimed him High King of all the Elves. He suckled on their Laws and lies until, like a babe who drinks its mother's milk to repletion, he was drowsy and content. When he spoke it was to echo the Valars words. He colluded with them in arranging marriages between the Vanyar and the Noldor. He distanced himself from Finwë, believing the Noldor dangerous, whom he had once loved for the intensity of their eyes, their fearlessness, and he agreed with their fates. He became a perfect, sexless cipher. Then, the veils falling away, he stared into Manwë's eyes and seen him truly. This Power he had loved and worshiped could look unmoved upon the deaths of millions, could pronounce damnation, smile with satisfaction, and shrug away all responsibility.

So Ingwë walked away. The winds came up and beat at him. Varda's ice formed around his steps.

“Thou wouldst dare?” Manwë's voice tore at his hair, at the neat braids that ordered it as Manwë had ordered his life.

And Ingwë had turned. Something rose in him, rage and disgust beaten white hot against the anvil of his heart. He said nothing, only let it show in his eyes as he unpicked his braided hair, let it fall loose to his knees.

Clouds grew snow-white and enormous above Taniquetil. They piled higher and higher, mansions to birth killing storms. Ingwë watched them, unafraid, yet knowing his death brewed there, and Manwë's thin lips curved — until a gale from out of the East slapped both clouds and sneer into nothing. Rain fell on the so-called Holy Mountain, melting the ice. The snow dimpled and dappled about Ingwë's feet. The wind smelled of freedom, of long-lost days of danger and joy.

He had walked down, his people following, to Valmar. And now, for the second time, he came to Tirion.

Finwë was not alone of course. There were people who had known and loved him before the Great Journey, and they remained with him out of loyalty. But he was alone this day in Miriel's garden, his private sanctuary where a stream plashed, and honeysuckle clambered, rich in the windless air. Ingwë had never been here before. Set within the palace complex, with blind walls on all sides save one, where a room looked out, it seemed to hold a warmth the rest of Valinor lacked. Flowers bloomed blood-red, blue and white.

The servant who guided him brought wine and a bowl of summer fruits, and left them. A small bird called sleepily from the shade. Finwë poured two goblets of wine.  
“Thou doth feel it too?” he asked by way of greeting. “They came here, my eldest sons, knowing no-one else did. To be together. And I knew. I said naught to them, knowing they transgressed against the Laws, broke the greatest of taboos. Yet I never thought they would be punished for it. Or I made myself believe they would not.”

Ingwë gazed at the bright hardness of his face, the eternal mourning, separated from those he loved, whom he felt he had failed. Finwë was robed in deep blue, his massy hair twisted over one shoulder, bound loosely with gold cord. He wore no circlet to proclaim that he had once been High King of the Noldor yet it was there in his bearing, under the sorrow, the loneliness. As he lifted one of the cups and handed it to Ingwë, the light blazed in his sole item of adornment, a ring set with a faceted gem. It fumed with colours, incandescent. Fëanáro had made it, Ingwë knew. The stone was not natural. Like the Silmarilli, it shone with an inner light. He reached for the wine, and his own ring blazed preternatural blue. Finwë's eyes widened on it.

“A gift,” Ingwë said. “And, at the time, a taunt.” He sipped the wine. “I knew thy sons would be punished. Not how nor when, but I listened as they talked of it, Manwë, Námo, Varda. I did not warn thee. I anticipated their punishment, theirs and others, with pleasure.”

Finwë slammed his goblet down. The crystal snapped and pale wine flooded the stone. He said tight, icy. “It was not for thee to warn me, though a friend would have done so through concern. Nolofinwë was, and is, of thy blood, or didst thou forget that? And why,” he demanded, all at once haughty, “would Fëanáro gift thee with one of his creations, even as a taunt?”

Ingwë stamped on reflexive anger. But it was, in this new life, or rather a reawakening of his old one, a not unwelcome emotion. He could feel.  
“Nolofinwë is my blood, yes. But then familial relationships, any relationship came to mean less and less to me. My wife, my children, my sisters.” He drank more wine. “The only thing that was of any import was Manwë's favour. I am deeply ashamed of it now, but so it was.” He finished the wine, poured the cup full and handed it to Finwë, who took it with a sigh. Ingwë held out his hand, moved it so that his ring captured the sunlight and glowed.  
“The day thou didst bring Fëanáro to meet me, when we broached the subject of his marrying Anairë, you walked with Indis in the gardens, as I suggested.”

Finwë nodded, curt.

“I spoke with Fëanáro of the betrothal. He looked at me with those eyes of his and said that if I were the offered bride he would be tempted. He was jesting, of course —”

When he laughed, Finwë's face changed utterly.  
“Fëanáro,” he said. “Meddle with him at thy peril. And it was no jest.”

“No? One must wonder what he saw in me to desire, then. I was simply a doll who posed and spoke the words Manwë put in my mouth. I know it well.”

“Yes, thou wert.” There was no apology in Finwë's tone. The pearl-black eyes Tyelkormo Fëanárion had inherited retained their gleam of mirth. Ruffled though he was, Ingwë was glad to see it. There had been too little laughter in Finwë's life.  
“Thy change was gradual, yet I saw it, and it troubled me. But I myself was not immune to the Valars influence. Only Fëanáro's presence held it at bay. Thou wouldst have been shocked by his suggestion, so why keep that ring?”

“I was hardly a stranger to such tastes,” Ingwë retorted. Both of them had dwelt too long on Middle-earth before the Great Journey. “But I had come to see them as filthy, unnatural.” He grimaced, the words bitter on his tongue.

“And thou didst truly think marriage would cure such...unnatural tastes, them?”

“At the time, yes. It was, Manwë assured me, the only right way. Bent appetites must be straightened.” He thought of his sister-daughter Anairë, whom he had treated, as head of the House of Ingwë, as if she were a chattel. She had initially been marked at birth to serve Varda as a virgin handmaid (There were many of those among the Vanyar, or had been) until he was informed that the child's destiny lay elsewhere. Anairë had accepted the purposed marriage to Fëanáro with perfect calm, promising Varda that she would do as her duty dictated. When Fëanáro collapsed the nascent arrangement by choosing his own wife, Finwë wed Indis and, not long after, Nolofinwë was born, whom had been betrothed to Anairë in the cradle, though he had not known it.

“I had not felt such shock since before coming to Valinor.” Ingwë did not try to suppress his smile. That, too was freedom. “I recoiled, and yet it brought back memories of being alive. Manwë was aware, of course, and after I was summoned to sit before his throne while he talked to me — or rather at me. A full day I knelt there listening to his litany before he dismissed me.”

Finwë regarded him intently. “When did my son give thee the ring? Not when I brought him to Ilmarin. He was too young, and that is not 'prentice work.”

“No. Some time later. After Tyelkormo's birth.”

“He made it to match thine eyes. A taunt, yes, a reminder, but not made or given with spite. He went to Ilmarin?” Finwë asked, his brows lifting. “I know he despised it.”

“Thou shouldst have seen him.” Ingwë had told over his memories of Fëanáro many times since lifting himself from Manwë's shadow because they alone were brilliant, flashes of lightning to break a dreary sky. “The great doors were opened and he walked up to the dais as if he were the king, not Manwë. He said, 'A gift, Ingwë. I believe the celebration of thy crowning as High King draws nigh.' I rose from my place, then, and he smiled, disrobed me with his eyes, and placed a silver box in my hand. I opened it and thanked him. He laid a hand on my arm, and spoke into my ear: 'I hope thou wilt think of me when thou doth wear it.' Then he left. He had not deigned to notice Manwë or Varda at all. They were angry.”

“A wonder they let thee keep it,” Finwë remarked. A pause. “Fëanáro made nothing for them. When they first saw the Silmarilli...such greed in their eyes!”

“Manwë did hint rather broadly that I should give it to him,” Ingwë remembered. “But I told myself I was the High King, and deserving of it. Already people were speaking of Fëanáro's brilliance. I said, politely, that a gift should never be given away, for it would be an action both crass and impolite, unworthy of me. But I did not wear it. I locked it away, until very recently. And yes, thou art right. The Valar — or some of them — always desired the Silmarilli. Little wonder Fëanáro hid them.”

When he had first seen them on Fëanáro's brow the sight had taken his breath like a blow to the stomach. The Valar said that the light in the jewels was borrowed from the Two Trees, and indeed even Fëanáro freely admitted he had sought to capture their radiance. Perhaps he even believed it. But no-one who saw him wearing the Silmarilli could doubt that their impossible fire was the same as that which raged behind his eyes. Never in his long life had Ingwë seen any-one so beautiful. And Fëanáro knew it. On the rare occasions he brought his sons to Valmar or Ilmarin, the knowledge was in his face, challenging, seductive. Wicked. It had not surprised Ingwë that such a creature would seduce his own half-brother, and Nolofinwë's eyes had sought Fëanáro too often, too hungrily for him to have been an innocent in the affair. Ah, how those beautiful elder sons of Finwë had fed the gossip mill on Taniquetil, and not they alone. All the Fëanárions trailed rumour, snared others in their glamorous net.

“Thou shouldst be with him, with them,” he said into the quiet. Finwë's face closed, and Ingwë reached out, clasped his shoulder. “What hast thou here? Arafinwë has all but taken my place at Manwë's feet. His powers may be fading, but he will poison Arafinwë as he did me, telling him what he wishes to hear. Why didst thou stay?”

Finwë gave a strange half-smile. “So few people understand my eldest son. Had I gone with him, he would have ceded me the kingship.” He raised a hand to forestall Ingwë's words. “He was born to be High King, and more. I felt it as he grew in Miriel's womb, the force of him. And I was not a great king. I lead the Noldor into a damned cage, and part of me knew we were giving up our freedom. What we gained was not worth the price, Ingwë. Even without the Doom, it would not have been worth it.” He rose quickly, looked about the quiet garden as if searching for something, some-one, a way out. Ingwë watched, troubled. He did not disagree.

“I said a friend might have warned me that the Valar planned to punish my sons. But even hadst thou done so, it would have changed nothing.” Finwë looked back. “Nolofinwë was born to love his half-brother, to control him when no-one else could. To stand at his side, always. That he failed was the first bite of the Doom, I believe, and to live without Fëanáro his greatest sorrow, if I know my second son. And I do. I will not cast a father's shadow over their...forbidden,” he snapped the word. “love.” He paced, and Ingwë saw some of the will, the passion that he had once known.  
“Thou couldst assure them,” he said. “that it does not matter to thee. Though I think they always knew that.”

Finwë flashed black eyes at him. His mouth went taut.  
“And they will, naturally, wonder why I was — and am — so sanguine.”

And so. He would not tell them.

“Damn the Valar to the Everlasting Dark,” Finwë hissed. “What did they know, ever, of the loves that moved us? One would think, having been formed of Eru's mind, all siblings, all with one father, they would understand. But such hope is dead ash in the wind.”

“I would wager some of them do,” Ingwë murmured. “But not those given the power to damn us.”

Finwë crossed to him, sat down. He spread his hands on his knees, gazed at the living brilliance of the ring, a memory of its maker.  
“When I was slain, found myself in the Halls of Waiting, I did not understand, where I was. To be without form is terrible.” Ingwë went cold in the warm garden. He could not imagine consciousness without it inhabited a body, though the Valar said that one day all Elves would wear out their forms and fade into houseless spirits. He gripped Finwë's shoulder and hoped it was a lie.

“Then Námo came.” Finwë's voice came flat with astonishing hate. “He told me that Fëanáro was dead, how and why, that the Teleri had been slaughtered. He told me of the Doom. Houseless or no, my soul wept. When Nolofinwë died, Námo came again. I was mad, Ingwë. And I could not even comfort my sons spirits for they were damned. I asked to be cast thence, into the Everlasting Dark, for then at least I would be with them. Námo called me a fool, said that my punishment was to be separated from my sons even in death, to know they were gone beyond recall. He said Melkor was shut with them in the Void, and would feast on their souls until there was nothing of them left.”

Ingwë pulled him close. His heart was sore, furious. Finwë's body was rigid. So much love. I never knew it, locked in my casket of ice and piety. Ah, how the Noldor burn.  
He drew a breath to speak, and startled as lightning veined the peaceful sky. They looked up as it hung, pulsing, over Tirion. Thunder cracked on its heels, and with it came a man. Ingwë had only seen him once, and that in vision, but had heard a great deal more about him before leaving Ilmarin. From Manwë's words, one might imagine him a foul miscreature. And would be wrong.

He strode into the garden like a conqueror, reminding Ingwë of Fëanor's unconsciously arrogant bearing. He looked like battle, made one think of the clash of swords, the last mercy-kiss of steel, and of dark, unspoken lust. His curled lips were moulded out of the sins of the flesh. Slave, warrior, god. As another crooked spear of light rent the day, he snapped his fingers, a king dismissing a servant. The after-clap of thunder came curiously muted, as if shut into a box.

“Stop it,” he commanded, and Ingwë knew he was not addressing he or Finwë. Blinding purple eyes flashed south toward Taniquetil. Of course. Manwë would hate this man setting foot on the sacred shores of Valinor.

“Dark Prince.” Ingwë inclined his head. An unanticipated thrill scorched him. Vanimórë brought a smouldering energy with him that set the nerves alight.

“High King Ingwë.” The voice matched his mouth. He bowed, hand on his breast, and his teeth showed in a white smile. “And High King Finwë.”

Finwë, a look of fascination on his face and something Ingwë realised was hunger, moved toward him.  
“I do not claim that title, Prince Vanimórë,”

“Nevertheless.”

Ingwë poured full the unbroken glass, and handed it to him.

“My thanks.”

“Thou bringest news from Endor?” Finwë asked after giving him time to savour the wine.

Ingwë was likewise curious, although he would have thought that Laurëfindë, as Power of the Elves, would be the one to bring tidings.

Vanimórë put the wine aside, subjected Finwë to a long look.  
“I do,” he said. “Though not of thy sons.”

“They are well, all of them?” At the yearning in his voice, Ingwë laid a hand on his back.

“Yes, they are well.” A spark of amusement. “They re-learn the freedom thou didst once know.” A glance at Ingwë. “Both of thee. All the Unbegotten.”

Finwë's mouth moved in a smile it seemed he could not repress. “Then I imagine,” he said. “that matters are most interesting.”

“And will become more so.” Vanimórë's eyes darkened, and Ingwë saw something in their depths which brought his heart into his mouth.  
“I wondered.” He touched one elegant, ringless hand to Finwë's cheek. “And I had to look into thine eyes to see it.”

Finwë's face froze.

“A twin soul. His loss worse than death, more terrible than pain. Thou couldst never speak of it. Of him. Élernil.”

No, Ingwë thought, Finwë had never spoken of him. He had searched, and Ingwë with him. Had they not been close? There was nothing but the mountains gnarling their fists toward the regions of ice, and the sense of dread at what lay beyond. A black underworld, the terrible power that ruled it. There was no sign, no dream, no touch, Finwë said, agonized, on his soul. Élernil had gone. His heart had stopped beating in time with his twin's, his lover's. Yes. Ingwë had known, and Finwë would not speak to his own sons of incest when he himself had been guilty of that sin. But was it? Ingwë had never seen two people so close as the first Noldóran twins, yet under the bleaching power of Manwë's breath, he came to believe that he was complicit in the sin, was a partner to iniquity. He vowed to wipe all such appetites from his soul, drew away from Finwë, from the stench of corruption that passed from father to sons. He did penance for his own misdeeds. Finwë had never spoken his brother's name after leaving Endor. So much pain. So much loss.

Vanimórë said gently: “It may be that I am outside my role in telling thee this. So be it. Élernil lives.”

~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I use Quenya names for the scene in Tirion, as that was the language spoken there. Fëanáro is obvious. Nolofinwë = Fingolfin. Arafinwë = Finarfin, Laurëfindë = Glorfindel, Tyelkormo Fëanárion = Celegorm. (Yes, the N in Nolofinwë does have a little squiggle over it, but Faerie blanks the N out completely, so I am just using a normal N).
> 
> * Élernil - Star Prince. (Sindarin, simply because the equivalent Quenya name, Elcondo, sounded silly to me, and since they are speaking in Sindarin on Middle-earth they would use the Sindarin name). I am really fussy about how names sound. If they don't sound 'right', I don't use them.
> 
> ** Anairë means Holiest in Quenya.


	48. ~ Long Shadows ~

~ “So, we are going to war.”  
Caranthir entered the open pavilion without ceremony. Maedhros looked up from the table, spread his hands (Two hands, and that was still a miracle).  
  
Fëanor had reached out to all his sons, informed them there would be battle, but to their urgent questions, he replied: 'not yet', with a smile seated deep in his voice. Neither had he disclosed the enemy, unless to his eldest. Maedhros shook his head at Caranthir's lifted brow.  
“Thou knowest as much as I. He will speak to us when he returns.”  
  
Caranthir accepted the cup of mead his brother offered.  
“It is not imminent, but he is burning.” He had felt it, an uprushing spark in the conflagration that was their father, the core of his fire fed by fresh fuel. It was not self-destructive, (thank Eru) nor lustful, but martial, and there was nothing in New Cuiviénen that would elicit such a reaction. The Noldor scouted the boundaries of their realm, guarded the surveyors and miners who went into the foothills. The long summer rolled on toward harvest, a tapestry of gold and green, of scented flowers. Fruits swelled on the vine, game grew fat for the autumn hunts.  
  
“Yes,” Maedhros agreed, and then: “He is pushing hard.”  
  
“Yes.” Caranthir tasted his exultant smile in the bubbles of mead, caught the answering spark in his brother's eyes.  
  
“But — ” Maedhros settled his chin on one palm. “He is going to leave some floundering. And now, to announce we go to war...Is he restless?” He rose, all long-limbed grace, came to Caranthir's side. They walked from the tent, looked across at the pearly walls of the rising palace, enough like Tirion to birth memories when one walked through it. It was a strange feeling, not unmixed with nostalgia.  
  
“He would not risk us,” Caranthir said. “to assuage his restlessness.”  
  
“I agree.” The silver eyes traced his face, saw under it. “Although I think there is — or was — a danger of us thinking ourselves invincible, unkillable.”  
  
“Not after Orodreth's play for power, not after Celegorm's kidnap.”  
  
“Celegorm's situation troubles thee,” Maedhros stated.  
  
“Yes. Celegorm. And Maglor.” The first, the most important. His family.  
  
Maedhros touched his shoulder, closed his fingers tight. The pressure was comforting. It always had been.  
“Do not worry about Celegorm. He is not unhappy, and thus I am not overly concerned.”  
  
Caranthir linked his arm through his brother's, thought: _Celegorm was raped, as thou wert. Only Fingon truly could bring thee back. Finrod brought Celegorm back, and at least he has no time to brood._ No, he certainly was not brooding. Body and mind were far too occupied.  
Still...“I would yet cut out their hearts, those white wolves.”  
  
“We all would. And will not. We drove them into madness, almost to death. All of us, not only Saewon. They were children.”  
Doriath came down between them. The smoke of battle, the reek of death, an underground forest of marble painted with blood, dashed brains, the secrets of the inner body flung like refuse across gleaming stone. Caranthir's memories were overbright pieces of tapestry, cut by the slash of blades. He had seen the young twins, but they had not snared his attention as they had Celegorm's. There was some spite against Beren and Lúthien in his plan for the boys, and little wonder. But Celegorm had died there as Curufin had, as he, Caranthir had. He felt again the stunning shock of his death wound, the agony. The clamour of battle went far away, and there was only silence, a slow-growing stillness, _cold,_ the greedy pull of Námo's hands on his soul. Maedhros laid his other hand on Caranthir's arm, gripped strongly, as if holding onto him. The remembrance of grief was in his face, and his own death in flame  
  
 _We all carry one another's deaths, and our own, in our eyes._  
  
“Celegorm has made his own peace with them, and they with him. And I searched for them.” Maedhros bent his head. Caranthir leaned into it, felt the heat pound under the creamy skin. “To bring _something_ out of that bloody _useless debacle._ ” He straightened, eyes like blazing mithril, choking down unforgotten rage as he had had to choke down death after death, their father's, Fingon's and, somehow, live. They braced one another against the pain that would never fade. Survivors, all of them, of the Oath and the Dark. Survivors carry scars.  
  
“They might have killed him!” Caranthir spoke into a bed of rich hair, moved back as his brother shifted.  
  
“He does not think they would have, and perhaps in this he does see true. Only he was there, after all. Leave this for now. As for his binding with Finrod.” Maedhros tilted his head as if to bring their cousin into his mental view. “Finrod is a gentleman, no matter that he is feeling his wings like a hawk taking to the air for the first time. It is not for us to step between them. I do not think we can. This binding is as deep as the blood-kiss, and perhaps older.”  
  
Caranthir twisted a braid around his fingers.  
“We would have stepped in before, binding or no.”  
  
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. I hope we would still take his wishes into consideration, though none of us were, I think, entirely sane.”  
  
“Are we now?” Caranthir wondered. “After the Void?”  
  
Maedhros shrugged, shook his head as if he did not care. Neither did Caranthir. They were alive, they had their father, one another and whatever might come to pass in this new world, he had sworn never to lose any of them again.  
  
A wagon rolled past, creaking with cut stone. Chisels and hammers tapped. They walked arm-in-arm toward the promontory. When the palace was finished all this land would be laid with terraced lawns. Caranthir remembered silver times of music in the palace gardens of Tirion. Maglor's voice climbing the light, more mellow, and to Caranthir's mind, far more beautiful than the singing of the Teleri, or the formal, high-toned chants of the Vanyar. There was _passion_ in Maglor's soul that forged his music into something unearthly even in Valinor.  
“Has Maglor talked to thee?” He touched the sore spot that had troubled him since his rebirth.  
  
“He has talked to us all.” But Maedhros' voice was neutral.  
  
“He has not... _opened_ himself to us.”  
  
The waters of Gaear Gwathluin shifted like a field of flax in the wind. He stared at the far-off ripples of turquoise and cobalt. There were no hidden depths in this shallow sea, as there were in his brother's eyes. He had always gravitated more toward Maglor than any-one, Maglor whom had played with him, who let Caranthir's temper sink into him, and did not return it in kind. Insofar as any of Fëanor's sons could be opposites, they were. If Caranthir wanted arguments, he went to Curufin or Celegorm, even his father, though no-one bested Fëanor in any quarrel. If he wanted to be soothed, he went to Maglor, whose passions ran so deep one might think him serene until one came to understand that he locked them down, wished them unseen. It was a form of self-protection. Bright lights draw more attention than shuttered lamps.  
  
“It will take time.” Shadows of light and darkness crossed Maedhros' face. “I could not open myself either, for a long time. And never completely. But I tell thee this: He loves us no less than he ever did.”  
  
“That I know.”  
  
“We solder over the wounds without thinking, until even love, even kinship threatens that scar. Maglor was alone with his for so long.”  
  
They had done what they could imprisoned in the Dark, fighting savagely for their identity, shown only that which would evoke grief and fury. But they had tried to reach out to their one surviving brother, and Maglor had seen them. The helplessness of not being able to touch him, hold him, truly comfort him, of watching him wander lost, mad — until he was taken to Barad-dûr.  
  
Patches of blackness lay over that time, gaps of unknowing that were, Caranthir believed, filled by the son of Sauron. He wondered about that strange man whom had recovered a Silmaril, used it as a weapon to break into Valinor. The Valar must have been infuriated. So close, and it had been taken from their grasp. No-one could tell him that they did not desire all three jewels. And their maker.  
“Vanimórë.” He turned the name in his mouth, curious. Dark silk and steel.  
  
“Even the most generous soul finds it difficult to be beholden,” Maedhros said slowly. His eyes were mirrors, and Caranthir wondered: _Even thou?_ He did not hide the thought well enough.  
  
“I love Fingon,” his brother said. “But I think of debts unpaid, think that I should have escaped without aid. Perhaps _I_ am not the most generous of souls.”  
  
Caranthir caught his arms. “Thou didst what I could not have done, that which perhaps none of us could have: dispossessed thyself, renounced thy kingship. I did not agree with the decision. Perhaps I still do not, but never call thyself ungenerous. I understand.” All of them had inherited an overwhelming pride. Fingolfin's house were as like them as a split hair from the same head. Relations between them could only ever be complicated.  
“But it is not only pride, unpaid debt, with Maglor.”  
  
“No,” his brother agreed. “It is hate, and lust — and mayhap love. I would meet him one day, Vanimórë, and ask _him._ ”  
  
“If thou art right, it is little wonder our brother hides.” There were complications in Maglor's life that tied him in knots of shame and need, their beautiful singer, with the Music in his voice, sorrow in his eyes that had been there since he was a child, as if some jewelsmith had hammered it in at his birth, an inlay of pain.  
  
“It has never been easy for him,” Maedhros said, love in his voice. “I do not think it ever will be.” Something in Maglor beckoned to the most dangerous, the most beautiful. It always had.  
  
The wind lifted mild, salty scents from the water, whispered in their hair.  
  
“In the spring,” Caranthir said after a while. “I may go east, to the mountains.”  
  
“To find another Helevorn?”  
  
“We need more scattered fortresses. Those Fell-wolves came from the mountains.”  
  
“As did the Balrog.” Maedhros raised his head to look at the snow-painted peaks far off. “Celegorm said that when the Fell-wolves attacked they wanted the Silmaril.”  
  
“Shadows of the past.” Caranthir's blood ran scalding through a sheath of ice. It was akin to pain, to pleasure, to the life he had known.  
  
“The past,” his brother said. “Casts long shadows both before and behind it. We cannot escape them.” His face was still now, unruffled, the face of the Prince of Himring who challenged Angband from his high, cold battlements. “And there are still shadows in thine eyes. Tell me.”  
  
With both Fëanor and Fingolfin gone north, the eldest sons had slipped effortlessly into their father's roles. Maedhros had not moved far from the Fëanorion encampment to hear news, but that did not mean none reached him. Caranthir suspected he knew. For a moment, he watched the busyness of labour, the creation of a work of art. He said, “Nost-na-Lothion was a taste of the freedom father wanted us to have, what we _would_ have had, as I understand it, had the Noldor not made the Great Journey.”  
  
Maedhros nodded briefly, unsmiling.  
  
“Some still cling to that which is familiar. Safe.” He looked back into his brother's waiting eyes. “There have been reunions, some marriages. Questions have arisen as to when _we_ will wed, as we should have but could not, bound by the Oath and by war. Others wonder when our mother and Anairë will join us. To make all complete. Elenwë has come, after all.” Irony thinned his mouth.  
  
“I _am_ wed.” When Maedhros spoke in that tone even his brothers were silent. “Whatever that means now.” But this with a glint of amusement, mercurial, as Fëanor could be. “It is Turgon's folk who speak thus.”  
  
So he did know.  
“They never left the Laws behind, living in that isolated city. And not only Turgon's people murmur, but he himself. He was ever jealous of Fingon's love for thee.”  
  
“What did I say of the past? Some things,” Maedhros murmured, soft-voiced and hard-eyed. “never change. But he did have reason.”  
  
Turgon had not been the only one jealous of star-bright Fingon's friendship with Maedhros. Not only was he Fingolfin's son, but he intruded fearlessly upon the Fëanorion brothers' special bond. They looked askance — until it became clear their father was unconcerned. If Fëanor accepted Fingon then so would they all. Anyhow, for all the volatile arguments between the brothers, had any-one outside the family spoken against Maedhros' friendship, they would have clashed into a shield-wall about he and Fingon both.  
  
“I will not permit any-one to come between thee and thy happiness again. We did what we could for thee. It was not enough.” Caranthir pitched his voice low, but felt the threat in it strain toward release. His hand had, quite unconsciously, dropped to his sword-hilt. He did not think there would ever come a time when they went weaponless.  
  
“No-one,” Maedhros declared, with a look of cold iron, a look from the past. “is going to do that, I assure thee. And thou didst more than any-one, thou and Maglor and Fingolfin.”  
  
“It was ignoble, I know. To the Hells with it,” he flashed. “I feel no guilt. We did what we wanted to do. For thee. For Fingon. I watched thee battle thy feelings for him in Tirion. Even as a child I felt thy pain.”  
  
“I know. Everything thou didst, all of thee, was done with love.” His eyes softened. “Had I refused, thou wouldst not have done it. I never did, or rather I did, but my protests were hollow as brass.”  
  
Caranthir gestured with one hand. “As they should have been.”  
  
They were silent, standing shoulder to shoulder, remembering. The builders and masons, the artisans cast glances toward them. They could not know how they looked, legends of the past, the sea wind in red and ebony hair.  
  
Caranthir thought how Fëanor's attitude toward Fingon, his unexpected insouciance had been mystifying, given the chilly relations that existed (or almost did not exist) between Finwë's sons. The cousins friendship was seen by some optimists as a fragile bridge, but Caranthir came to understand that his father and Fingolfin needed no bridge that one might, in many cases, trace the rumours of despite to the mouths of those most nearly concerned. The enmity was a ruse. It was not quite a lie, for how would there not be rivalry betwixt two such proud princes? but it served to deflect from the damning truth.  
  
Caranthir's temper was infamous. He knew it, was unconcerned by his notoriety, and whatever others might think it did not define him nor blunt his wits. How did they think he had ruled Thargelion? Like his father and all his brothers, he could _think,_ puzzle through problems to find a solution. A hundred little things, taken together, had built the blocks of suspicion into an edifice of certainty. There was a molten possessiveness in Fëanor's eyes when he looked upon his sons. Caranthir had seen that expression when Fëanor turned his gaze on Fingolfin. Then there were those quiet hours, the mingling of the lights, when Valinor dreamed. Or most of Valinor. At such times Caranthir had, on occasion, glimpsed his father striding back to his wing of the palace. One might have assumed that he had come from Finwë's chambers, save for his appearance, hair loose in a great cloud, shirt unlaced, his lips flushed and swollen, a musky scent about him. His eyes were windows into light. He looked like a conquering king.  
  
When he was grown enough to understand, Caranthir wondered if Fëanor were pursuing an affair with one of Finwë's women, even with Anairë, simply to spite Fingolfin. That suspicion died almost as soon as it was born. Caranthir could not imagine any of the Vanyar in such a situation.  
  
It was not in his nature to pry or spy; rather he would have asked his father outright. To be a son of Fëanor was to enjoy that closeness if one chose it. He did not choose it. The idea of infidelity fascinated him rather than shocked.  
  
Sex was a difficult subject if one were a Noldor of Aman, born to burn, to experience passion in all its guises, and trammelled by the narrow confines of a Law which might have been created with the purpose of gelding them. Children were born, strode into adulthood and thence the genteel but enthusiastic marriage market. It seemed that each time a Fëanorion son reached a certain age, the eyes of Tirion turned on them. Fëanor made no effort to either encourage or discourage them in the matter of wedlock, but when given the choice of staying in Tirion or going with their father on his journeys through Valinor or to Formenos, each and every one chose the latter. Caranthir recalled feasts that had been nothing less than a penance, and could not think it was any less awkward for the young women maneuvered into his path. Little wonder he had sympathised with Haleth of the Haladin, whom had stood stern and unbending against the pressure put upon her to wed. He had heard tales, after she left Thargelion of her bodyguard of women. Sisters. Lovers. Insofar as an Elf could understand a Mortal, Caranthir understood her.  
  
Curufin was the exception among the sons of Fëanor. His betrothal had startled Tirion, but the marriage died almost sooner than the surprise. The Fëanorions were _different._ It might not have mattered so much had they been an obscure family, but they were not. The gossip that circled over their heads only brought them closer together with a lift of the lip, contemptuous, at the rumourmongers.  
  
Caranthir had never questioned his father's infidelity. His parents no longer shared a bedchamber, though they visited one another's rooms at whiles, after which came Curufin and the twins. Tortured by burgeoning desires, Caranthir knew instinctively that his father would never settle for chastity, or a life where sex was a rare event. He was, in fact, breaking the Laws that were taught to every Elf born in Aman, whether the shore-dwelling Teleri or the aloof Vanyar. Caranthir was intoxicated by that thought because Fëanor was also defying what, apparently, he was as an Elf. His fire did not gutter and die.  
  
There came a day when they were obligated to attend a feast in the Halls of Ilmarin (this was before the memorable time when Fëanor stood up in the midst of Manwë's monologue and simply walked out). All the House of Finwë were in attendance, though Fëanor had delayed until the last moment. Fingolfin and his household were already in the vast antechamber, mingling with Finarfin's family as they waited to be admitted into the presence of the Valar. Fingon turned as if he felt Maedhros touch him, and Caranthir had expected that, but because Fingon was standing close to his father, he was able to see Fingolfin's reaction.  
  
Fingolfin and Fingon had the same eyes, pure diamond-blue. Both pairs bloomed with white fire, but _Fingolfin was looking at Fëanor_ , and Caranthir, walking away with Maglor, could see his father's face. A tiny smile curled his mouth; it pouted as if he were blowing a kiss, and colour bloomed along Fingolfin's high-cut cheekbones. Without thinking, Caranthir reached out to catch Maglor's arm, almost saying aloud “Didst thou see...?” He caught himself. It would be like Fëanor to do something outrageous to embarrass his half-brother.  
  
Maglor turned his head, said nothing. He did not have to. He knew.  
Caranthir's fingers tightened on his brother's arm, then dropped. It was so obvious when one accepted that his father scorned the Laws, if one acknowledged that he desired other men, that such deviancy was even possible in the rarefied confines of Valinor.  
  
Caranthir and his brothers had swung to face Fëanor's fire. There was no other direction for them. He was their pole star. The Dwarves had a saying when a son was like his father, that he was: 'A chip off the old block.' Thus with Fëanor's sons. They were aspects of him; as they saw themselves in him, he saw reflections of himself in each of them. When Caranthir's observations brought him to the only possible conclusion he could reach: that his father and Fingolfin were lovers, he had felt overwhelming relief. If he followed his father's steps, he could shed the ill-fitting shame.  
  
There had been arguments when he was a boy, between his parents. His mother wanted her sons to wed. Her words, “For them to be _normal_.” had been stitched with frustration. That had been after the rumours about Aredhel and Celegorm. When Nerdanel broached the subject, Celegorm laughed lazily. (There were darker whispers surrounding him. He followed Oromë's hunt at times, and the Vala was known to be wilder than his kin).  
“Do not fret, mother,” he reassured her. “Aredhel is safe with me. Even Fingolfin trusts me.”  
  
Caranthir heard a sound of amusement from his father.  
  
“My sons will marry whom they wish to, when they wish to, or not,” he had said with finality. Celegorm appeared, a hectic light of amusement in his eyes, flung his arm about Caranthir's shoulders, and lead him away from the nascent argument.  
  
He understood, after, that his mother had only been concerned for them.  
“Even _thou_ didst wed,” she said to Fëanor. Caranthir did not hear his father's reply.  
  
It was not that he shunned women, but the Laws said that sex was the act of marriage itself, and that seemed grossly unfair. Desire and love were not one and the same thing. He had asked his father about it, and Fëanor had laughed, but with more than a trace of contempt.  
“Eru only knows who came up with that one,” he said. “It was not so in Endor, before the Great Journey. Thy grandsire has spoken of it to me. The Laws are risible, Morifinwë.”  
  
So they were, but the Noldor were bound to them as long as they lived in Valinor. If he were to feel desire for a maiden and was intimate with her, he would be married. That unalterable fact of law could not be surmounted, and it was an effective restraint.  
  
At first, hearing the murmurs that fluttered up from Turgon's camp, Caranthir experienced that same sense of constriction he had known in Valinor. It fed black-fuming fires within him. Fëanor had announced his new laws, but some of the Noldor still preferred to walk the thin furrow they had plowed in Valinor and Beleriand. His jaw tightened so that it ached. He wished he had been present when the news of Finrod's 'marriage' reached the erstwhile Gondolindhrim. Fëanor's journey to the north was his benediction, and Fingolfin had gone with him. Turgon would know that. All the Noldor knew it. So a blessing, but also a hurled gauntlet of intent.  
  
“We are slow to change,” Maedhros said, then. “Some of us. We wore the yoke too long. Still, it is natural that Turgon and his people should wish things as orderly as they were in Gondolin.”  
  
“Orderly.” Caranthir repeated. “Turgon has spoke of taking his folk into the mountains again, find a place to build another hidden city.”  
  
“That is his privilege.” But Maedhros frowned. “Who told thee?”  
  
“I had it from Fanari. Naturally,” he said dryly. “Penlod wishes her to go.”  
  
“And naturally, she will not.” Maedhros moved those long, slender fingers in a gesture. “Because Tindómion will stay. So. Father has made it clear that any of our people may live where they wish within the borders of this realm. If Turgon wishes to found another Gondolin, it does not make him a villain. Is that what thou art looking for, Caranthir?” His name was spoken with that loving roll of the 'r's. That was Fëanor's voice when he knew one of his sons was troubled. “He does not really fit that role.”  
  
“I do not think him a villain.” Caranthir lifted his shoulders impatiently. “I think he steps back instead of forward. I think he wishes to call himself King again, as Finrod has, and distance himself from us, rule another isolated city, a beacon to any-one who feels father's kingship is too progressive.” He fell into mind-speech. _Father is_ happy _How often didst thou ever see him truly happy?_  
  
Fëanor could be utterly involved in one of his many creations, could be impatient, angry, sardonic, teasing, enthusiastic, arbitrary, provoking, amusing and amused, and they had all seen him mad with grief at Finwë's death, but happiness was not an emotion Caranthir had often seen in his father. It was no-one's fault, or if blame lay anywhere it lay on the Valar. Fëanor should never have been born to the chains Valinor snapped about his wrists from the moment of his birth. He had broken them soon enough, and had meant, before ever Melkor stirred the waters of Noldorin ambition, to free all his people, lead them back to Middle-earth, but the chains had worn grooves in his soul. For the sake of others he had not entirely snapped them yet. The ones he wore now were ghostly, but still visible, ornaments of his kingship. It would take a long time for the Noldor to accept the deepest taboo. Yet, for all that, Fëanor was happy.  
  
 _If Turgon hints at_ anything _I will —_  
  
Maedhros settled a hand on his back.  
  
Turgon had accepted the chains of the law through love. He had married young, moved from the palace to a mansion where he gathered his own followers, the young nobles who later became Lords of Gondolin. No trace of scandal clung to his name. His people, save for the disowned Glorfindel, were known for a rather rigid cast of mind, an aloofness, but that in itself was hardly uncommon among the Noldor. Fingolfin himself posed as remote and cool as if to act as a a foil to Fëanor's untempered heat. It was possible that Turgon had wanted to put distance between himself and Fingon's relations with Maedhros which had ever been too _warm_ for friendship alone. But it also might be because he guessed at his father's secret. Caranthir did not know. He decided he would find out.  
  
Fingolfin was revered for the manner of his death. It would be a brave man or woman who dared question him. Eru knew that it was hard to follow such a father. Fingon had. Turgon had not.  
  
 _If he spoke up publicly, would Fingolfin's authority survive? Or our father's?_  
  
Maedhros's eyes narrowed. _He would not._  
  
Caranthir shrugged a 'would he not?' He had never forgiven Turgon for sitting in Gondolin when the Dagor Bragollach scorched the north. That he had brought an army to the battle of Unnumbered Tears did not tip the balance either in the battle or in his favour, not in Caranthir's eyes. He had heard that when Gondolin was assailed Turgon refused to leave his tower, thus his household knights remained with him. And died. More might have survived had he left the city which had become his jewel, his Silmaril. Hardly could a Fëanorion chastise any-one for an obsession, but Caranthir was not interested in fairness. He had loved his fortress on the shores of cold lake Helevorn, made opulent by the wealth that passed through his hands, but he would not have died for it. Only for his brothers and father. As he had, and would again without hesitation. They were more precious to him than his own life. He himself might own jealousy at his father's long addiction to Fingolfin, but he did not begrudge him it, not before the Oath, and _never_ after it.  
  
Maedhros was watching him, the sun on his hair, copper and red swirling into serpentine patterns at each caress of the wind.  
 _Perhaps we should visit Turgon's camp,_ he suggested. _And sample the wine there, so to speak._ The smile so long lost brought light to his beautiful face. But it was the smile of the blade's edge.  
  
Caranthir nodded.  
“Knowest thou,” he mused. “I would have loved it, our life here, were it not for the anguish.” His remote fortress, his own people, utterly loyal to him, had been his first true taste of freedom. He had been able to discover his desires without censure. He had learned how to rule, learned the dances of lust.  
  
“So could I have.” But not after Angband and Thangorodrim, not after their father's death. Which of them could have denied him the forbidden love that brought a lamp into his darkness? Caranthir had never regretted duping Rosriel. He would have killed her had Maedhros even voiced the wish that she was dead, and Maedhros knew it.  
“No Oath to sharpen our teeth on,” Caranthir said, grimacing at the frailty and dark truth of that jest. “Perhaps I seek one.”  
  
“There is an Oath.” Maedhros' white teeth showed like a wolf's warning. A thrill ran like lightning through Caranthir's veins.  
“The Valar.”  
  
“One day.” He made it a promise. “They have accumulated a wealth of debt. But this — ” Maedhros gazed down the length of the palace frontage to where Curufin walked with Celebrimor, heads together, hands expressing their thoughts. “Is a time of healing, of learning.”  
  
Caranthir followed his gaze. “I did not think Curufin would forgive.” He was unsure if he would have been able to. He shook his head, smiled to himself. Of course he would. Blood was blood, and they had all been shown Celebrimbor's death. Maedhros slanted him a look.  
“As well he did. It keeps him from thinking of Celegorm.”  
  
So close those two had been until Nargothrond. After, Celegorm was not the same.  
  
“Now come. Let us visit Turgon.”

 

Turgon's camp was leagues away, pitched about a small river and its tributaries that fed into Gaear Gwathluin. The banners of the Houses of Gondolin hung unmoving in the warm air. One was absent, and ever would be. Caranthir wondered what Turgon thought of Glorfindel's elevation to godhood. They rode past wide-spaced ranks of tents set in concentric circles about the lord's pavilions with Turgon's in the center, no different to any other camp. Eyes followed them, but the greetings were limited to brief bows, until another rider joined them. Ecthelion glittered, sable and silver, though his clothes were for the hunt, hair braided back from his proud face.  
  
“I thought it could not be long,” he said soft under the thump of the horses hooves. “Rumour flies quicker than a hawk in this place. From me to Fanari and to thee.” His teeth showed. “Fingon is here.” He nodded toward Turgon's pavilion, still distant.  
  
“How much of it is true?” Maedhros asked. “Much, I would think. Thou art in Turgon's councils?”  
  
“Yes. Little has changed.” He frowned down at his hands on the reins. “Glorfindel cannot be here of course, and I am not sure now if he would be welcome. But it is so easy to slip into the familiar.”  
  
“If he thinks to shame any-one, to bring up the matter at council — ” Caranthir began, and Maedhros put up a hand. Ecthelion's eyes rose to them.  
“He will. He wants things as they were. There is a gap, still. Idril. Tuor. If he cannot fill it, he will seek to make things as ... _normal_ as possible.”  
  
Caranthir had not even thought of Idril, and had never known Tuor. He knew the tale of course, that it was their son whom had moved the Valar to arm, take war to Morgoth. Now Eärendil, called the Blessed, was supposed to sail a ship through the sky bearing the Silmaril. Caranthir had to admit it looked like a Silmaril, or as one would if seen from afar, but tales of a sky-ship were for children. His father had said nothing about it whatsoever, which in itself was an argument.  
  
“How normal was it in Gondolin?” Maedhros asked dryly. Caranthir caught the underlying fire, rising.  
  
“Thou art asking me?” Ecthelion brows rose. He gave a small, pretty laugh. “Among the majority, it was exceedingly normal. But there are other things at work. Turgon would never return to Valinor, but he seeks what he had before. He knows, I think, that he erred in certain matters, and comparisons here are...inevitable. And he is Fingolfin's son.” A different tone to the last words. His eyes were wide, pure ice-crystal. Maedhros, without even looking, slammed a hand down on Caranthir's thigh. The warning was clear.  
“I thank thee,” he said, courteous. “And what wilt thou do, Ecthelion, who was damned as we were?”  
  
Something shifted in those eyes, shadows, memories of the Dark.  
“My people are loyal. I have a responsibility to them and, I think to all who do not aspire to normality.” He bowed his head, turned the stallion in one smooth move, and cantered away.  
  
Fingon came from his brother's tent to meet them as soon as the herald's horn sounded. One could easily mistake him for Fingolfin at a distance, but he smiled more easily than his father. There was no smile on his mouth now. As Maedhros dismounted he strode up, clashed into a kiss in the sight of all. Neither hurried it. The guards at the door of the pavilion had faces of stone.  
  
“What brings thee here?” Fingon asked, moving to embrace Caranthir, who felt the tightness through each elegant muscle.  
  
“Rumours.” Maedhros cast a glance around that challenged each and every person.  
  
“Ah.” He did smile then, fierce and fragile. For heartbeats his eyes locked with Maedhros'. Caranthir was closed out, and could not summon the smallest flicker of jealousy, not for these two.  
  
“Come in for a cup of wine.” Fingon probably did not even realise what he was doing with that unconsciously arrogant invitation. He was too generous to be petty, had never known his brother as a king. How far apart had they drifted? _Comparisons here are...inevitable._ There were no awkward edges among Fëanor's sons; Caranthir could not envisage the rough ground of jealousy between them.  
He walked with his brother and Fingon into Turgon's tent.  


 

~~~


	49. ~ Morgoth's Ring ~

_Slowly,_ he advised. _He must be stronger._  
  
They stared through the barrier which, while invisible, imprisoned them within the Void. It was torment perhaps more terrible than the prison itself; they could look upon the world they had been banished from. It did not invite madness, but demanded it. But how far into madness could one go when there was no escape from it?  
  
The object of their attention was was both more and less than human, seated on a ransom of furs that made his physical deterioration the more obvious. Gothmog was visibly impatient, but impatience served no-one here. It was impossible to note the passing of time which could feel like an eternity or a long-dead heartbeat.  
  
Visibly. Now that was a strange word to use. His memory clothed Melkor in form, the first fleshly body he had worn when he set foot upon the Earth, perfect and magnificent; a mane of black hair, flawless skin, eyes so deep a blue they seemed black save when the light caught their iridescence. Save for those eyes he looked disconcertingly like the latter-born Fëanor. Memory, but what else did any of them have in this place? They looked like they imagined they did. Vanity? No. He had known all of them in their first splendour, and it outshone the stars. He wondered how he appeared to their eyes. The last-comer.  
  
He turned his gaze back to the man.  
_His mind is all but gone, Sire._  
  
_Of course. But he still possesses self-preservation. That is the last instinct to die._ Melkor turned his head, that memory-smile.  
  
Mairon had expected the attack upon him when he was thrown into the Dark, but not the strength of it. He had learned then, and swiftly, that returning to their primal state, all Ainur regained their native power. Melkor had not been so strong since the beginning, when he began to mould Arda. Sauron might beat back the others, the acolytes who delighted in bullying, like street thugs; he was mightier, but Melkor, he could not best. He had not run, indeed he could not. The Everlasting Dark was a prison as endless as the universe, and paradoxically small as a cell. He had closed his soul tight, and let Melkor's fury descend. Strangely (or perhaps not) he had thought of Vanimórë, whom, after his initial struggles, accepted his torments with dignity. One of them had learned from the other, or it was inherent in their natures.  
  
He thought at first that Melkor sought to tear his spirit to shreds and devour it, but apparently there was little pleasure to be gained in that. In any event, he had been distracted by the birth of two gods, and the release of the Noldor. A howl of rage had rang through the Void as the stars fell — to be reborn. Freed from Melkor's attentions, Mairon gathered the ragged pieces of his soul, and coiled in on them like a wounded animal, snarling at those who came close to gloat. They retreated.  
  
But there was hope, no, there was _certainty._ This was not the end. His blood link with Vanimórë enabled him to touch his son's mind. His window upon the world was clearer than any-one's save Melkor's, whom had poured himself into it. His power had dispersed into Arda. Sauron's own seed was concentrated in the dark-burning form of his son.  
  
Whom had become a god.  
  
Neither Sauron nor Melkor had foreseen that.  
  
_He continues to mock me,_ Melkor had cried. Was there pain in that cry?  
  
He. Eru.  
  
The prisoners had heard His voice for the first time in aeons and all, even Melkor fell silent. He thought — had always thought — that the Children of Eru were usurpers. Though they possessed no great power in comparison to the Ainur, they were more beloved. The vision of their coming had been, to Melkor, a turned back, a slap where none was expected nor deserved. _Were we not good enough?_ Arda had been created for the Children to know the glories and pains of form. What of the Valar, birthed from Eru's being? For them, nothing, unless they took it. And so.  
  
Mairon did not offer an opinion. He was _delighted._ The Valar dismissed and overpassed, humbled to the ground though they yet clung to their influence and power like shipwrecked sailors to a floating spar. Well, perhaps he could understand them, at that.  
He had only seen the aftermath, pulled away from his self-absorption by his son's apotheosis. He threw his will across the Void, felt it anchor in Vanimórë's blood. It sank deep. The relief was overwhelming.  
  
_Forged as a sword is forged, my son. Even Eru sees what thou art._ But what exactly did he see. _What will he use thee for?_  
  
He did not want to possess Vanimórë — impossible anyhow with all that power roaring inside him — he wanted to use him, but his son would have to be unmanned. There was a way, and when the barriers crumbled, he could return to Middle-earth. No doubt Melkor was thinking the same thing, and had come to the same conclusions.  
  
A way back.  
  
Events continued to fascinate, a welcome, if frustrating diversion from this black nothingness, limitless and overcrowded. The Noldor's return, the Balrog, the lost ones, those whom Melkor had called his White Slayers. Although they had not answered his call when he returned to Angband, he would doubtless try again, fail again. (And Vanimórë had been right in his guess that they had sparked Mairon's idea to sire his own child. He had known that those changed Elves broke from Melkor's will in Angband. There had to be a way to ensure that such a creation remained under its maker's control). Túrin, reborn, or reincarnated if one wanted to split hairs to face, in a circle of poetry, another evil. Dana, the Mother. Mairon knew of her from Vanimórë's mind, but she had ever remained distant from his knowledge. She merited caution, even respect, yet she played a bigger game. At times she acted, but for the most part allowed events to unfold as they would.  
  
Mairon considered his former Mouth. Once Malantur had been different, arrogant, a bully, but brave. He had grown too greedy, discovered joy in perversion and cruelty. He was a glutton unable to resist a table spread with food, and had gorged himself. Mairon saw his fears: that he would age, crumble into senility and incontinence and, eventually, die. He would. The blood rites would keep him limping on for a while, but he needed Elf blood simply because Elves had long life-spans. He had used Vanimórë's in Mordor, with Sauron's permission (if not his son's).  
  
He smiled to himself, but it was a smile that bent into an iron-hard inner grimace. Malantur, rather than gather power in Mordor after the war, had fled, afraid of Vanimórë's vengeance. In another twist of symmetry he had come to Angmar. Angmar, built on the power-soaked bones of Angband. And now his terrors had come home to roost, gore-crows with beaks that dripped the blood of murdered souls. He was doomed, but Melkor would use him until then, or rather, Gothmog would. Melkor had his sights set firmly on Vanimórë. He wanted to enter into him, take his body, and meet Fëanor. His obsession had not faded with his punishment. Marion had not expected it to, certainly not now that his enemy was reborn, thus his interest in this burgeoning war was more to engage his mind than anything, to see how successful Gothmog might be.  
  
_Thou doth not want Gothmog free upon Arda, and outside thine influence,_ Mairon murmured. _He craves power as much as any._  
  
_I know that,_ Melkor returned. _That pathetic creature in Angmar will melt like wax when Gothmog enters him. He will need to find some-one else, and few are those who could contain him._  
  
_Nemrúshkeraz,_ Mairon said absently.  
  
_It would seem logical._  
  
Malantur ate, red juices trailing down his chin, his bare chest where the ribs showed in sharp, white swells. His teeth wrenched and chewed as Melkor lashed the command like a whip into his mind. _Eat._ Food was growing scarce, and when the Elves returned to weave their net about Carn Dûm the supply would be blocked. The orcs and Men would have to hunt for the rest of the short summer and autumn. There were a few soldiers of Mordor who were experienced enough to look ahead, though most were succumbing to the black ennui of Angmar, breathing the fumes that leaked from Angband's skeleton. Malantur himself had lost the ability to consider the necessities. Born royal, elevated to high status in Mordor, he had ever left such matters to his subordinates. That was one of the many differences between he and Vanimórë, who wanted to know everything from the ground up, to excel at all he turned his hand to. _He_ could have ruled Mordor had he desired and the Mannish legions, waiting behind the mountain walls to march on the West would have bowed the knee before him. But freedom had been a heady wine on his tongue. Mairon understood that. It was enough, for now, to make his own choices, to grow accustomed to what he now was. It would not last. Mairion knew his son. He would rule as he had ruled Sud Sicanna. He would not be able to resist.  
  
_We are very alike. This will be interesting._  
  
He enjoyed watching Vanimórë. So completely had he shaped his son, that even now Vanimórë could not break from the moulding. And why would he want to? He was magnificent.  
  
_Thou art what thou art_ because _of me, not_ in spite of.  
  
He wanted time — oh, how amusing. He had nothing else, here, but he wanted time to consider all that had happened without Melkor's constant interference. Loss of physical form had at least this advantage: he could review his life from a distance, and see all that had lead to his downfall.  
  
Melkor's attention had turned to Gothmog, and so Mairon took the opportunity to unfurl his memories. The One Ring. Admittedly he had been wrong, there, and his son right. He had not dreamed that any-one finding it would not use it, that shining seductress. Indeed he had feared that Galadriel or Glorfindel would be snared. That battle would have shaken the world, and the war not yet ended.  
  
Now the world, the balance of power had shifted. Eru had made gods of Vanimórë and Glorfindel. The Noldor had returned. Mairon wished he could see into their New Cuiviénen, but Glorfindel's sun-shield of power was raised against him. No matter. That gift could not endure. Men were too prolific. In they end, they would rule the world, conquering by sheer numbers. Which left Valinor. Perhaps the dethroning of the Valar was to pave the way for the time when the Noldor and all Elves turned their backs on Middle-earth forever.  
  
Valinor...Mairon focused his mind on Vanimórë there in Finwë's quiet garden. He found a flicker of amusement for his son's casually arrogant dismissal of the Valar's outrage. To be more specific, at Manwë, Námo and Varda's outrage. Vanimórë was not without sympathisers among the Ainur.  
As he spoke, Finwë stood as if his flesh had become stone, then something broke. He wrapped his arms about his stomach, fell to his knees.  
Ingwë, known to Mairon only as a fearsome figure of battle in the War of Wrath, dropped beside him, lovely face upturned, scoured by shock. Vanimórë reached out a hand as if to touch Finwë's head, who jerked back with a scream that must have reached to Taniquetil.  
  
_No. Do not give them the honey of thy pain._  
  
Vanimórë curled his fingers into a fist, dropped it against his thigh.  
  
_Thou couldst not resist trying to make all right,_ Mairon thought. _But there are some things that cannot be mended._ His son considered Elgalad soft-hearted, an eater of others pain, but in truth he was as compassionate; he could not bear suffering, unless it was his own.  
  
Melkor's regard closed around his mind like fire, and he hardened himself. _Like thou, my son. Thou hast pieced thyself together time after time, but the scar tissue remains. Like Finwë, and all the Noldor. Like us, in the Everlasting Dark._ And not like the Valar, whom had never known grief, deflected it all to Nienna, who wept without understanding, as if she were a machine built for the purpose of producing tears.  
_There is some virtue, perhaps in knowing pain. Empathy, and the comprehension of it, is useful._  
  
Melkor was at his side.  
_His sister still lives,_ he observed, passionless. He had chained his rage as the Valar once chained him, screaming into nothingness. How long could it last? Mairion did not consider his master capable of change. It would not serve Eru.  
  
_Yes._  
  
_Does he think of her?_  
  
And that was what Mairon had suspected. Melkor could not look into Vanimórë's mind. Good.  
_As one thinks of an old wound, Sire, that ever gives pain._ He was quite unable to resist that. _But he decided, long ago, that she was accepted into the Halls of Waiting._  
  
Melkor said contemptuously, _Even knowing what that pinch-souled bitch Námo was, and still is?_  
  
That specific and peculiar blindness in his son had only briefly puzzled Mairon.  
_He believes what he wishes to believe. He was very young when he killed her._ But he was unsure if that was the whole truth. Here and now Vanimórë was in Aman, could speak to Irmo, see the sister he had loved so dearly. Save that she was not there. Did part of him suspect that? He was not a man to flinch from even the most terrible truths.  
  
_He thinks she is safe, as his mother is, and refuses to look further. Perhaps he believes she would not forgive him._  
  
Melkor dismissed Vanimórë's possible reasoning with a mental shrug. _He needs a reminder of true power. Move her._  
  
It was harder to find his daughter than his son. The binding on her had been light, if unbreakable, and she had been crippled long ago. She did not even know whom she was.  
_I do not need to, Sire. She has ever searched for him. At times their paths have crossed, but he has not seen her._  
  
For a long time Melkor stared at Vanimórë. He said nothing, but emotions pushed themselves through the surface of his skin, a species of baffled fury, memories of lust, even perplexity. Perhaps he was remembering the slim youth he had used, had dance before him as Lúthien had. There was nothing left of that boy, at least to look at. One memory-hand spread on the barrier, the strong, slender hand of an artist. A black ring seethed on one finger. It had startled Mairon on first seeing it. Unlike the One Ring, it possessed no solid reality, but if one looked into it, mountains, seas, rivers, forest, desert unfolded. There was a world within that Ring. Arda.  
  
Melkor flicked a glance at Mairon who smoothed his mind to glass, opaque and futile if Melkor chose to break it. He did not.  
  
_It is time,_ he said. _for their reunion._ And he smiled, all black, bitter gall. _How poignant._


	50. ~ Summer Peace, Summer Storms ~

 

  
**~ Summer Peace, Summer Storms ~**

 

~ “Obsession is so destructive,” Lómion mused. “I could not simply enjoy, or find pleasure in anything. I had to desire it beyond reason. And that is not an excuse, but an observation.”

Imladris surrounded them with waterfalls like silk hangings to some immense and beautiful house. When they entered the valley, those whom had not seen it before paused as the tight cliffs eased apart to show the mansion of Elrond, its wings and walkways, bell-towers and gardens. Elladan and Aredhel had gone ahead, and people came out, waiting beyond the bridge. When the company crossed, the women were lead away by Cell and Sunniva, while Thranduil and his people were conducted to their quarters. Wine and food were served, and the travellers sank themselves into hot, scented water. Peace fell like drifting leaves in the slow waning of the day.

“Thou art Finwëion.” Tindómion half-smiled, sitting back on the settle, a wine-goblet held in his fingers, but trouble was tucked into the corners of that smile. On their arrival, he had been shocked to to find Imladris so sparsely peopled, and was conscious of guilt. In the exuberant rush of the Noldor's return, their departure from Mithlond, he had spared barely a thought for those remaining behind though he had known, of course, that Elladan and Elrohir would never leave.

Tindómion loved New Cuiviénen, but it was home to him only by virtue of those who dwelt there. Even Imladris was not the home Lindon had been. That was an older ache. In his travels to find his father, he had ridden among the towers, the mansions that time, remorseless, covered with ivy. He had forced himself to look upon the palace, where birds nested and vines ran wild. It was flagellation, as was each visit to Gil-galad's grave. Yet there were other memories, so beautiful they hurt as much as the grief. Strange that he could remember all the poisoned glamour of the High King's court and feel nostalgia for it because of Gil-galad. As for Imladris, there had been gold there too, among the lead of grief: Glorfindel, Erestor's unexpected about-face to friendship, the birth of Elladan and Elrohir. Tindómion had left pieces of his heart in every place he had lived, and could not uproot them and carry them away to a new life.  
“Few of our house have escaped obsession.” He most certainly had not.

“I am not only Finwëion,” Lómion's voice held a vein of harshness.

“Neither am I.”

“No, but thou art Noldor. Yet my father was likewise obsessive. Of my mother, of me, of Nan Elmoth, his secrets...It is not only a Noldorin trait.”

“I know how it is to hate one's father or,” Tindómion amended. “To believe one does.” He knew very little about Lómion's life, and would resent any-one assuming knowledge of his own. Indeed, the haughty face did close, but after a moment, he relented, said, “We drove him mad, mother and I. They were not suited, or not for long. But I often wondered — and still do — what my life would have been had I stayed in Nan Elmoth.” He looked ahead. “But I wanted more: the other half of my heritage. And even that was not enough.”

“Another trait the Finwëions possess in full measure,” Tindómion offered. “Is ambition.”

“I saw no reason I should not be Turgon's heir.” Lómin spoke with a bite of aggression. “Indeed he treated me as a prince of the blood. And then there was Idril. And Glorfindel.”

“Thou didst love Idril?”

A decisive shake of the head. “No. Again, obsession. She was beautiful, and beyond my reach.” Lómion lifted a hand as if releasing a memory. “She made me hate myself when I learned that she saw something crooked in me. At least Glorfindel did not do that.”

“The Laws, again,” Tindómion almost snarled. “I would have winked at the Laws had I not known the punishment for breaking them.”

“To want some-one that much, and know thy love would doom them. At least I never had to contend with that.” Lómion murmured over his wine. “I got what I wanted. Or one of those I wanted. And Idril would not have loved me had there been no laws. I was, I think, too...intense.” A wry smile that quickly faded. “Anyhow, Glorfindel thought he was deflecting attention from her, but he was more than enough. If he wanted to believe he was protecting Idril, that suited me. She was never in any danger from me, whatever she may have thought, save at the end, when I had gone as mad as my father. Morgoth —” He put space around the name, and it was filled with horror and shame, a bloody bruise in his mouth. Tindómion closed a hand over his shoulder, felt tremors under the rigidity of hard muscle.  
“He...dangled Gondolin before me, Gondolin, Idril, to give my rule some legitimacy, as if there could be any! Glorfindel.”

He had been young, locked in a world even his mother could not have prepared him for and, perhaps from the moment of his birth, used as a tool of the Doom.

“I think thou hast come to some kind of understanding at least, with Glorfindel, and Idril did not come back.”

Lómion's brows flicked sardonically. “There remains only the Gondolindhrim. But I will never be of them again, even if they forgive me, which they will not. There is one thing missing though: Tuor.” His mouth tightened, and Tindómion saw the ire and bitterness of his old life under the pride. “Idril feared me, Tuor hated me, and he was high in Turgon's favour. Messenger of Ulmo, son of Huor.”

“He is Elladan and Elrohir's great grandsire,” Tindómion reminded him. “And he is not here.”

“Not yet. And do not tell me those two have aught to do with Mortals. They are Noldor, no matter what their blood. They are _nothing_ like him,” Lómion said passionately. “And Tuor lives. The Valar... _rewarded_ him the the life of the Elves. And for what? There is _one_ I would offer that gift to, if I could.”

“Túrin.”

“Beleg will know one day, as will Túrin himself. And even if they remake that old tale still Túrin must die.” Lómion's eyes were white ice. “Beleg does not deserve that. Neither of them do.”

Tindómion nodded. The story that surrounded Túrin, Beleg, Imladris, and Angmar had become his own. It was personal. Too many threads had interwoven in the Elder Days for it to be otherwise. Silent, they looked over the garden. A child's high, excited voice sounded, and through an arbour thick with roses came Beleg, a child dancing beside him. Tindómion's heart twisted. He stared down into his wine.  
“But what can we do about that?” he asked in an under-voice.

Lómion shook his head. _As I understand it, only Manwë and Mandos were given the power of rebirth, and to give the life of an Elf to a Mortal, surely only Eru can make that possible?_

They could not speak further. Beleg was approaching, Túrin hanging from one hand, black hair bouncing around his shoulders. He looked, Tindómion thought, like an Elf-child. When he saw a stranger, he stopped talking, looked at Tindómion shyly with huge eyes. Beleg introduced them, took a seat, stretching out his long legs, and Túrin settled against him. He seemed content to sit there as the adults talked, snuggled against Beleg's side. Tindómion, after a moment, could not bear to look any-more. He put down his cup, walked from the balcony down the garden and paused, looking up to where a great gallery curved. Some-one was walking along it quickly. Coming to the end, they descended the sweep of stairs. White hair followed like a blown summer cloud. When the stairs opened to a path and the nest of gardens, he slowed, crossed a small bridge, and flung a look back up. Tindómion watched, and Bainalph turned as if aware of him. He visibly took a long breath, inclined his head politely.

Since Tindómion had last seen Bainalph he had found clothes: a doeskin tunic, breeches and boots. He looked very beautiful, in the way of the Sindar, like water, air, the sway of trees, both graceful and supple, but also like a man whom has just walked away from an argument.

“May I help thee?” Tindómion took a few steps towards him. This prince of the Greenwood had been imprisoned and raped by Malantur. It explained his air of fragility, less physical than an expression in the green-gold eyes. Despite it, there was something enticing in him, an overt and unashamed sensuality.

“Thank-you,” he said in his light, pretty voice. “I was looking for Beleg.”

“He is here.” Tindómion gestured to the balcony. “Please, join us.”

Bainalph, seeing the little group hesitated. “I do not wish to disturb you.”

“Thou art not.” And Beleg lifted a hand, beckoning. Bainalph's answering smile was rigid with tension. Pausing, Tindómion looked up again at the high gallery, saw the light drown in golden hair. Thranduil's frustrated anger burned like the sunset. For a moment, he gazed down at the garden, and then with perfect grace, and intention in each step, began to descend like a hunter who knows his prey is run into the ground and cannot escape. Bainalph's head lifted. Pride ran an iron band across his shoulders. Tindómion felt the connection between them like a two-headed serpent with poison in its fangs. It was not his business, but he felt an impulse to protect Bainalph. Unnecessary, of course. Legolas had told him of the Swan Prince of Alphgarth, for all his grace and winsomeness a superb warrior. Perhaps it was his horrific imprisonment that fanned the flames of chivalry. He said, “Thou art most welcome, I assure thee.” His eyes met Lómion's, who was frowning, though not, he thought, at Bainalph. Beleg's outstretched hand seemed to pull Bainalph across the shaven grass. Tindómion turned aside and went to meet Thranduil.

~~~

“Strange place, this.”

Vanimórë, hands resting on the balcony turned as Vixen sauntered from her room. He had said that he would watch over the Uruk-hai and the Easterners while they were in Imladris. No-one wanted the Uruk-hai there, but he had said they they were going with him, that Dana had requested him (more like an order) to take them south. Aredhel had spoken up for them, which proved again that no matter how long he lived he would never comprehend women.. As for the Uruk-hair themselves, they had not wanted to enter Imladris, which doubtless looked too much like a trap. Even now, Vixen remained strategically out of arm's reach. She gazed to where the valley opened its arms to pastures, a small lake. Cattle and horses grazed on the lush grass, vines clambered up the hillsides.  
“It's like...strong wine,” she smacked a hand on the smooth wood. “Too much, and you could sleep.”

“That is the Elves,” Vanimórë said.

She slid him a look. “You're Elvish.”

“Half-Elf. And not raised in such a place.”

“Sauron's son. I heard about you in Isenguard. Seen more of the world, haven't you?”

He shrugged. “I suppose so.”

“And they've — ” She waved a hand. “Lived in memory. You haven't. Lived right on the lines of battle.”

“Oh, so have they. But Elves can never forget. Memories are both hearthstone and the secret poison in the cup.” He straightened, regarding her and tried, as he had tried since first seeing the Uruk-hai to understand Dana's desire to let them live, give them a chance of a new life. And he did understand, it was his lifelong bias that bared its teeth.

A shadow crossed her face. “Lion just wanted freedom, some homestead where we might live honestly, trade with Men. It doesn't seem as if it would have worked now. And I'm no farmer. We thought of trapping, selling furs maybe. Still, you can't blame any-one for wanting immortality. And I thought Sharkey was mad.” Her talk was like her movements: sharp and jerky. Vanimórë recognised it for nerves. “Almost a shame to miss the war that will bring that piece of shit down.” With a movement of her head to the north. Then: “What is it like, this Umbar?”

“It is a place of trade. Busy, exotic, it welcomes people from all lands if they buy or sell. The new king, Elessar, will reclaim Umbar for his kingdom sooner or later, but nothing much will change. No king can afford to close his doors to trade.”

“So people won't know we're Uruk-hai. We can — ” A wave of the hand, mockingly. “Blend in.”

“Yes,” Vanimórë agreed. “The Elves will not accept thee, neither will the people of Gondor. The bad blood between orcs and the Men of the West is too old, and runs rich.”

“Funny,” she said with a twisted smile. “I never really fought Elves or the White Men, save that milk-haired Elf, only against Sharkey's soldiers, and in Carn Dûm. And still I'm an enemy.”

“To come with me will give thee an opportunity. Tell me,” he said, curiously “What dost thou want from life?”

“What do I want?” Her hand fell to where her weapons would hang if she still carried them. “I was bred for war.”

“So was I,” Vanimórë replied. “But do not tell me there is no more than that. Thou art no fool.”

“Ah.” She stretched her arms, spun on one foot. “What does any-one want? A place in the world, a home.” Stopping, poised on one toe, she said slowly: “I would be a tale-keeper, I think, when I'm older.”

Vanimórë was surprised. Although he detested orcs, he could not live as he had, Sauron's son and slave, without coming to know them. To Men and Elves, their culture would seem crude, harsh, but there was one. Tale-keepers held the oral history of the orcish race, were usually female, and mothers of many; one dam could bring forth twenty or more pups with ease, and multiple births were not uncommon. When the women grew older, they were revered.

“Some-one,” Vixen continued, letting herself down to both feet like a dancer. “Should remember Sharkey and what he did, the Uruk-hai. The tale of Angmar. It's not good to let stories die.” She threw back her red ropes of hair.

“I agree. Then perhaps thou wilt find a place to settle, to be at peace, and become a tale-keeper.”

Her teeth showed. “Peace! When I'm a grandam maybe. I want _life._ ”

Vanimórë almost smiled.  
“Umbar certainly has that, and perhaps that will only be the beginning. Merchants pay well for skilled guards, and travel widely. If you can fight and are loyal to them they will not give a damn what thou art. Thou wilt see many places.”

“Hmm.” She considered. “You know that Lion and I have already decided to go with you. Ox will follow us. There's nothing for us here, is there? From what I've heard we'd be hunted down and killed by this new king.”

“That is so. Men would find an excuse to kill thee, ” Vanimórë said, because it was true. Let there come any hint that these three had orcish blood, were the product of Saruman's breeding-dens, their lives would be worth little. “We leave in a few days. I would advise you, as I have advised the Easterners, and the Mordor soldiers, to keep close to these rooms.”

“Ay,” she responded. “As you have said, I am not a fool.”  
She turned, went back to the chambers where Lion had emerged from the bath and was drying himself.

“Well?” he asked.

Vixen wiped sweat from her brow. “I don't know. But maybe....maybe. Anyhow, we have to trust him. I like the sound of Umbar.” She ran her fingers over the heavy tapestries that hung from the wall. The scenes depicted were strange to her. “I wouldn't stay here, even if we were welcome. It's too...”

“I know,” he said.

“I'm thinking Umbar could be a good life,” she said. “Not like that bloody shambles in Angmar, though I don't blame you for how it fell out.”

“Generous of you!”

“It is. And I reckon we were lucky to get out of that cess-pit.” She grimaced. “Too much dark magic.”

Lion tossed the towel aside, sat back in a long cushioned settle. He tipped his head back. “Perhaps this offer is the best thing to ever happen to us. I'll talk to him, when there's time.”

“You should, we'll be travelling with him awhile, after all.” She moved to a jug of mead, poured a cup and drank, then shuddered all over like a wet cat and swore. “He's like a black sun, trying to pretend he's normal. I'll tell you this: I am sick of wizards and sorcerers and White Demons. If Umbar is what he says it is, I'll kiss the cobbles, horse-shit and-all.”

Lion grunted. “You've always had a strain of common-sense.”

She dropped down beside him, stretched. “Remember that next time, before you hare off into the blue after some impossible dream. All-right, I admit I am curious, or was, but if I so much as get a whiff of sorcery again, you are on you're own.”

He reached for the mead. “Odd as this place is, it's an improvement on Carn Dûm.”  
  
“Too many Elves,” she muttered. “They make my blood crawl. One thing I will say, I don't think that Vanimórë is lying. Don't think he'd bother.”

“He wouldn't.” Lion blinked golden eyes. “He'd have killed us before. He does not need to lie.”

~~~

Kashan, Vaija and Narok slept, as did Zeva, who was lodged with them. The shutters were open, a warm breeze ushered the scent of flowers into the room. Vanimórë regarded them, their slow, deep breathing. Imladris held a timeless peace that soothed the spirit, for which he was glad. Whether it would last when war broke, he did not know; he hoped so.

Elgalad came to his side, slid an arm about his waist. Vanimórë rested his head against the silver hair. Perhaps he should not have gone to Valinor, to Finwë. It was unpleasantly like stepping from summer into a dead winter wind, and the battering of the Valar against his mind had been an irritant. But he had seen the loss in Edenel's soul mirrored in Finwë's, and had wanted to fill it. What he had done was evoke horror and guilt. Finwë had blamed himself for not searching longer for his lost twin. He did not even have the satisfaction of knowing he had lead his people to their promised paradise.

“Thou couldst not have found him without going into Utumno,” Vanimórë told him, and Finwë had lashed back: “Then I should have gone into Utumno and shared his fate!”

What response could one give to that? Vanimórë would have thought the same thing. In the face of such anguish it had seemed intolerably presumptuous to offer to carry a message to Edenel, but it had to be done.

“The question thou shouldst ask,” Finwë had replied. “Is whether he would want to hear any message from me.”

“He loves thee,” Vanimórë said, knowing it. “That is the only thing that matters, the deepest thing. Even Melkor could not destroy that.”

A terrible expression flashed like water over Finwë's face. He put up on hand.  
“He does not know thou art here, does he?”

Vanimórë would not lie to him. “He does not. I came because I believed thou shouldst know. Because...it should not have happened.”

Finwë loosed a moan that held a cat's snarl. “ _But it did._ Think not that because I choose to dwell here that I do not know of thee. Glorfindel told us. My brother spoke to thee because thou art alike, could understand him, though thou wert a stranger. In all these years, even when the Straight Road was opened again, he did not seek me out. Does that not tell thee everything? How could I ever comprehend what he endured? I abandoned the world that gorged on him. I should have known he was not dead. And then Morgoth slew me...I wonder, did he laugh?” His breast heaved with foreshortened breaths. “Some things cannot be mended.”

“I do not believe that,” Vanimórë snapped. _I_ will not _believe it._ “Thy brother sees himself as bent, twisted into something _other_ And he is. He is a sword reshaped in the fires of the underworld, and magnificent.”

Finwë's white cheeks flushed. There was a look of hunger in his eyes, as if he yearned to know everything of his brother, every expression, every movement, the tones of his voice. And so Vanimórë related it, even when Finwë turned away, walked the garden with his head bowed. Ingwë's eyes never left Vanimórë. There was silence after, slowly filled by the notes of birds, the murmur of water.

 _Canst thou not bring Élernil here?_ Ingwë asked, as Finwë slowly walked back, not seeing them. _Not now, unless he wished it, but at some time when Finwë has encompassed this?_

_If he would come. These Finwëions. They are all pride._

“Thinks't thou that everything can be healed by love?” Finwë demanded. His eyes were black as obsidian in the pale light. “Even _this?_ ”

Vanimórë thought of himself. “Yes. Insofar as such deep wounds can ever be healed.”

But Finwë shook his head. “Thou knowest better.”

“I only know whom has healed me, and it is enough.”

He had left then, cursing himself, and had not told any-one, though both Elgalad and Coldagnir watched him as if they knew. But Edenel might ask Elgalad, who would not lie, and so Vanimórë sewed the secret behind his lips. Only Glorfindel shared it.

Coldagnir approached now, his face showing something of the peace of this valley. Vanimórë held out his free arm, and the Balrog came to his side, pressed against him.

“Wilt thou stay?”

“Fëanor has not asked that I return. And I feel I would be more useful here.”

Vanimórë nodded. “I have to go,” he said, and to Elgalad. “But thou couldst remain here.”

“No.” There was no hesitation in his voice or eyes. “And I think th-that whether or no thou art d-destined to be involved in this war, thou wilt be, and so w-will I.”

“I certainly intend to do all I can within the boundaries that are set.” He drew a hand down the silver hair. “But true war will not be for some years.”

“Wilt thou deliver Zeva back to his people thyself?” Coldagnir asked.

“It will involve a detour, but yes. The merchant I guard will argue, but I will persuade him.”

Coldagnir turned his head. “Will he be welcomed? They are a warrior people. And he was used as a...plaything.” The pause was barely noticeable, but it was there. Vanimórë tightened his arm.  
“They will return as heroes, I will ensure that. Zeva's father lives. He is a _Qari_. He has the Sight. Such people are revered among the Men of the East, as Zeva will be.”

“Good,” Coldagnir murmured. “And the others?”

“I am not sure yet.” They were too well-trained to be a merchant's guards. “But I will not abandon them again.” He could not forgive himself for having dismissed them from his mind. Looking back on those first days of heady freedom, he realised now how very close to madness he had been, even as he strove not to fall headlong into it. Yet his actions had driven the orcs to Angmar, and thus the first rumble before the avalanche of destiny.  
“I told them that Carn Dûm will become as a bad dream. The Mortal memory erodes in time, a gift, I think, of their shorter lifespan. It will not feel so close, the horror will lose its edge, Another facility their minds possess is to utterly forget the most dreadful or unbelievable of experiences. I have seen it often. At least I hope that one day they will not be sure any of it happened, if it were some old nightmare, difficult to recall.” His arms tightened about them both. “Even we may be forgotten.”

Coldagnir's mouth smiled against his cheek.  
“They will never forget thee,” he predicted.

~~~

Fëanor rode into the camp like a wind from the sun. He reined in a moment to assess the progress of his palace, nodded once, and then turned his horse toward his pavilion. The news from Gaear Gwathluin had cut short his visit to Finrod, but the point of it had been to see Celegorm, and to tacitly approve of Finrod's actions in the rite of the Summer King. The point had been made.

His sons were waiting for him, Fingon stood shoulder to shoulder with Maedhros. Gil-galad, whom had come with Fingolfin, went to his side. His father's arm closed about him.

“Time to talk,” Fëanor said.

When Maedhros and Fingon went to Turgon's camp, his reaction to their unashamed closeness had been cool, though neither had expected anything different. Elenwë had been there also, but had said little, in fact no-one had time to say much, save that Turgon had told them he was indeed intending, come the spring, to investigate the eastern mountains for a place to found his new city.

Then the horns sounded, voices went up in the camp, and they had gone outside to see a mounted company approaching from the south, from the mighty outflow of the Inland Sea. A banner flew above the riders: a white swan's wing.

Many of the lords stepped forward to welcome Tuor, Turgon foremost, delight sweeping the sternness from his face as he embraced his daughter and her husband. They were swept into Turgon's pavilion, while his household were welcomed, a place appointed for their tents to be pitched. But though Tuor's greeting had been warm, the news he brought was oil on a fire already awake and eager for fuel.

He and Idril had been informed that ' _the traitor Maeglin_ ' had been released and had come to Middle-earth.

There was uproar, the Gondolindrim clapping hands to sword-hilts, looking about as if they might see Maeglin uncovered in their midst. Turgon's face showed wild hate for a moment. but then, “Thou wert misinformed,” he said. “He is not here.”

“Sire,” Tuor snapped. “He _is_.”

“Father, the touch of the Valar on them,” Maedhros said, tight-lipped. Both Tuor and Idril looked like strong plants that had grown too high in thin air and gone pallid and bloodless. Tuor was clearly a Man, square of jaw and more stocky than any Elf. His eyes were cold, grey bleached to white. Idril was a tall lily with thorns. They had clearly been made much of in the Halls of Ilmarin which was where they had sojourned since their arrival in Valinor, and came with that consequence knitted into their skin. This attitude had not endeared them even to Turgon, Fingon said. Long accustomed to kingship, Turgon had reasons for desiring it, and keeping his hand over his people, but the Valar had damned his father and brother, and whatever his personal jealousies, he would not support them or any who clung to their robes. Tuor and Idril expected more than they received, but in the matter of Maeglin, they were not disappointed.

Fëanor ran a finger across his lips in the universal signal that mind-speech was to be used henceforth.

 _Well,_ he said. _Did he accuse us of lying? Of Maeglin living disguised amongst us?_

 _He stopped short of doing that,_ Maedhros' mouth was a strict line. Fingon, prowling the room like a panther, came to his side, ran a hand down his back. _Turgon pacified him, but he wishes to call a council._

Fingolfin spoke. _Maeglin is not within New Cuiviénen._

Curufin, standing beside his son, suddenly stepped forward. His eyes flared lightning-white.  
 _Because,_ he said. _Aredhel is in Imladris._

Every head turned to him, then with flurries of hair, snapped back to Fëanor, whom could not quite repress a smile. It had not taken them long.  
Fingon exclaimed, _Father?_ and went to Fingolfin. Fëanor watched realisation spark in Gil-galad's eyes as they moved from Fingolfin to him.  
 _Thou knowest,_ he said. _The both of thee. As does Tindómion. So that is why he was chosen to escort Aredhel to Imladris. Glorfindel knew he could persuade him to secrecy._

 _Shall we have some wine?_ Fëanor suggested. _And then we will speak to thee. Listen first, ask questions after._

When he and Fingolfin had told the tale, there was a moment of swollen silence before the questions began. There were fewer than might be thought.

 _Father —_ Fingon stared at Fingolfin, then visibly caught back his doubts. _I see why thou couldst not kill Aredhel's son,_ he said. _But Turgon will want him dead, as is his right. And Hells, he is not the only one!_

 _He has already paid in the Void. People would seem to forget that. Whether he was banished there for his treachery or no, he has paid. And he was willing to die a lonely, dehumanizing death in Carn Dûm to rewrite his part in this tale._ Fingolfin's chin rose in a reflexive, haughty gesture that Fëanor loved. _I will not permit that. Turgon is my son; thinks't thou I did not grieve for the fall of Gondolin, in the Everlasting Dark? And still I will not permit it. We go to war, and against a terrible enemy. Lómion is willing to come before Turgon, but not before that tale is retold — and if he is even alive. And I should be surprised that the Valar informed Tuor and Idril that Lómion was in Middle-earth but not where, but I am not. They were sent here to sew discord._

 _I suspect that having Orodreth snatched from their hands infuriated them._ Fëanor looked at his sons. _This is another cast._

 _Well, I trust thou wilt forgive me if I spared little grief for Gondolin, and care naught for what Maeglin did,_ Caranthir said without apology. _But it would seem Maeglin's is not the only retelling of an old tale; Turgon would again take his people away from the world._

 _He is free to do so,_ Fingolfin returned. _The circumstances are hardly the same._

_He is not free to set himself up against our father._

Fingolfin's eyes turned to Fingon and Maedhros. _How likely is that to happen?_

 _It will happen, father,_ Fingon replied tersely. _Sooner or later. They will see the familiar in Turgon, laws they are used to. It may not be so many, but those who find it difficult to adjust to this life will see him as an alternative._

 _Those who look on us to marry,_ Caranthir's mouth lifted, derisive. _Or remarry, father, since thou hast ruled that is acceptable._

Fëanor laughed. _If any of thee wish to marry, do so with my blessing._ More seriously: _I would welcome any thou didst love._

 _I believe I prefer the old ways,_ Caranthir said. _When marriage is not a lifelong bond, and love is a pleasure, not a duty. Father, we did not marry in Valinor. Why wouldst thou think us so changed?_

 _I do not,_ Fëanor asserted. _But I would have thee understand there is no disloyalty to me inherent in thee loving others. But surely thou knowest that._ He glanced at Maedhros, smiled. It was returned. _But be assured there will be no marriage mart here, as there was in Valinor, no arranged marriages. But there will be those who pursue thee, men and women both, and I cannot prohibit that. It is natural._

They were accustomed to that.

 _Yet those who hold to the ways of marriage will still think we should wed, especially as we go to war,_ Maedhros commented. _Or art thou not going to tell them? Father, we must train if we are going to fight._

Fëanor nodded. _I have to tell our people. And we must of course, train._ He paused, met each of their eyes. _If this were a poem, Túrin will slay Malantur, or whatever possesses him. But life, as we know, is not a poem, or if it is, it is a tragic one. I believe the Valar will meddle if they can. I intend to take my household to war, but I do not wish to risk any of thee._

 _Nor I thee,_ Fingolfin addressed his son and grandson.

Their faces blazed repudiation even before they began to speak, surrounding Fëanor, with Fingon and Gil-galad flanking Fingolfin.

 _Father._ Maedhros lifted a hand, and Fëanor saw him then as the son whom had lead and ordered his six brothers through the bloody years of the First Age. His gesture brought down silence.  
 _Father. We leagured Angband for centuries, and we were not idle in that time. If there is another oath I have made it is that we will not lose thee nor be parted from thee again. In thy madness to confront Morgoth, thou didst outride us, and we could not come to thee in time; we saw thee wounded, and dying thou didst pass through our hands in flame and ash._ His eyes were hard and luminous as polished steel. _We were left with an Oath, but worse than all, worse than anything, a grief that could never be assuaged._ We will not lose thee again.

They were all around him, touching him with their hands, holding him, avowing their oldest oath, which was to him alone, to their father, and unspoken until now. It was not his Oath they had followed to their doom, he knew, but the words that had come from him, because his mouth had shaped them, and because the Silmarils were the only things left that held part of his soul. _Except them; they each are a part of me._

At last there were no more vows, no more protests, as they hemmed him, inseparable. Fingolfin said to him: _Thou couldst surely not think they would let thee go to war alone._

 _Oh, and didst thou believe Fingon or Gil-galad would let_ thee? he retorted through a smile, and felt his half-brother return it, pride and love edged with pain. Like his own.

“Sire?” One of the guards entered, bowed. “Forgive me for interrupting thee, but thou shouldst know that Prince Turgon and the Man Tuor ride to thee.”

His sons drew back, Fingon and Gil-galad loosed Fingolfin from their embrace.

“Does he, now?” Fëanor felt the cauldron of killing heat in his breast. It was always there, part of him, and could rouse to insanity, to violence. He smoothed a mental hand over it. He was its commander, not its slave but, like a hunting hound, his hackles went up. He could feel the same emotion ripple through his sons as all of them faced the doorway. Fingolfin stood a little apart, kingliness like a cloak falling from his shoulders. He would face his youngest son and Tuor as a High King, not a father. His eyes met Fëanor's for a moment, and it was like a warrior's clasp and a kiss.  
 _We face this together,_ Fingolfin said into his mind. _But Lómion is_ my grandson.

 _Thou art most impressive, my dear, in this guise._ Fëanor threw him a wink that held approval and love, no trace of satire. Fingolfin's lip's bent into an infinitesimal smile before shadows darkened the tent door and Turgon and Tuor entered.

 

~~~

 


	51. ~ Nothing Is Over, Nothing Is Ended ~

 

**~ Nothing Is Over, Nothing Is Ended ~**

 

~ Turgon loved his father— and hated him, was proud of him, jealous of him. He was a fine warrior (it was said), had been a successful king by his lights, but shame had made a nest in his soul. Fëanor, for whom physical façades were as windows, could see it as a dark shadow that oozed like a poison-wound.

Turgon certainly hated the Fëanorions. He had never forgiven them for abandoning his people, and the subsequent loss of his wife. But after his rebirth and reunion with Elenwë, was no more inclined to remain in Valinor than he had been of yore. Then, near-mythical Endor was a place where he might stand alone, outside the glittering shadow cast by his too-bright father and brother. He had not altogether succeeded, not for nought had he been called the 'Hidden King' but, and for that very reason, Gondolin had stood longer than any other Noldorin realm; its people had become Turgon's family, knitted together by isolation. Turgon still considered them so, wanted to take them away from the hotbed of kings and princes, too many of them related, back to a life he was familiar with and could control.

Fëanor sat, leg slung over the arm of a chair in a manner he knew was offensively casual, watching Turgon and Tuor.

Tuor, it was clear, had expected his embassage to be greeted in the same manner as his one from Ulmo. Certainly the initial reaction to his news had been gratifying, but then it had fallen flat. He did not think that Turgon was lying when he said Maeglin was not here, and now had the look of a man cheated of his prey. That sat ill with the awe he felt as he confronted legends. He did not look, after one swift, wild glance, at the Fëanorions, but did not seem any more comfortable with Fingolfin, whose cairn had watched over Gondolin. Fëanor let his eyes stroke from the gleaming black crown of his half-brother's head, to slender feet shod in doeskin boots, and felt them in his memory. He loved seeing his brother as the High King he had once been, stern, regal, dazzling.

Fingolfin did not give either his son or Tuor time to get their feet under them.  
“Maeglin, my daughter-son, whom now we call Lómion, is not here.” His voice wore authority as effortlessly as he would wear a crown. “He is with his mother.”

Every-one was watching Turgon's reaction. His face went blank, then colour swept into his cheeks.  
“In that valley? Imladris? Thou didst say— ”

“My reaction was much the same as thine when first Glorfindel informed me.” There was sympathy in Fingolfin's expression, but nothing that could be construed as a softening. “He too was sent here by a Vala. By Irmo-Lórien to retread and perhaps remould an old doom.”

Turgon said through tight lips: “He owes Gondolin a death.”

“He was banished to the Void. He has repaid and repented. I have met and spoken with him. I have claimed him.” Fingolfin's eyes flashed diamond-blue. “But even had I not, I would not slay Aredhel's son, whom she loves.”

“He is a _traitor_!” Tuor sounded half-strangled. “He tried to kill my son.”

“ _Was_ a traitor, and has admitted it. And he did not kill thy son because thou didst kill _him._ ”

“Father,” Turgon grated. “This is _impossible._ ”

The gem-bright eyes flashed from Tuor to him. “Thou didst love him once.” And Turgon shut his mouth over his teeth, shook his head.  
“ _Why,_ ” he asked. “Father, explain this in a way I can understand.”

“Firstly, he is here to reforge the blade that Túrin Turambar wielded, and will again, which he has done. Secondly, there is a power far in the north. A man has settled there, once a servant of Sauron, a sorcerer whose deeds are vile beyond measure. Now, thou wilt sit and listen.”

They did listen, and while Fingolfin's words made something of an impact on Turgon, it was equally plain that Tuor was pushing them away. He did not want to believe, and if the tale were true then he would refashion it into something he was comfortable with.

“He will betray in the end,” he said. “Traitor then and now.”

“When Túrin is grown, I will lead my people to Angmar, to war,” Fingolfin told him, his voice like an unsheathed blade and as uncompromising. “I do not wish to lose Lómion. He has sworn he will die before he betrays, and I have looked into his soul. I believe him. Thou canst not say he will turn traitor this time. No-one can.”

Tuor's throat moved as he swallowed. “Equally, sir, one cannot say he will not. He is an evil fruit. Perverted.” His pale skin stained red. “Oh, I knew what he did, I knew about Glorfindel and Ecthelion. Every-one did. We all turned our eyes away, but they died for their sins. Maeglin raped my wife with his eyes, even after we wed, and all the time he went to Glorfindel—”

Fëanor felt the waves of fire beating from his sons, and Tuor must have felt it also, for his head twitched toward them. Caranthir was straining at the leash, Curufin's lips were curled with contempt, and Maedhros was staring as at some dead creature washed up on a beach after a storm. Fëanor clamped a hand over his own anger. This must be for Fingolfin to deal with.

Fingolfin simply sent a glance to his eldest son and Fingon, face star-bright and proud, stepped across to Maedhros. They stood, hip to hip. It was not a showy exhibition. It did not need to be. Tuor recoiled, mouth dropped open.

“It is not a sin to us,” Fingolfin's eyes clasped Fëanor's for a heartbeat.  
“Whatever thou hast been told, it never was. Only the Valar pronounced it so and punished accordingly. We were _all_ punished for it, those of us who broke the Laws. And surely thou didst know that before thine ill-judged words? We have heard too many of them; they are old and worn out. It is over. Námo is unseated, and none can be condemned to the Dark. As for Idril, I have it from both Glorfindel and Fanari Penlodiel that she was never in any real danger from Lómion. Glorfindel and Ecthelion watched him closer than he knew, as did Fanari. It is indeed unfortunate that Idril should have perceived him as a threat, but save at the end, I do not believe he would have hurt her.”

Tuor backed away, mouth working on words he apparently could not force out through his rage and shock. He stumbled, ran from the pavilion.  
Turgon remained.  
“How couldst thou do this?” he asked his father, tension like gold wire through his voice.

“Thou art not the man I think thee if thou couldst kill thy sister's son.” Fingolfin put a hand on his shoulder. Turgon did not move, but he looked away.  
“Excuse me,” he said formally. “I have much to think on.”

“When thou art calmer, come to me. We will speak.”

Turgon glanced up. “Yes,” he said. “I will.”  
As he moved away, Fëanor said, “Thou art bound to me by the Blood-kiss, nephew. We are prohibited from doing aught that would harm one another.”

Turgon turned back, his face white, hard.  
“As _thou_ art bound to _me_. Not so? Is this not harming _me_?”

“It would harm thee more to become a murderer in cold blood, Turgon. And that is what thy people would ask for, most of them: the execution of a criminal who has _already_ been killed, is reborn and has been given another task. Not by me, but by Irmo, perhaps by Eru. Thou wouldst be a murderer, and the act would curdle in thee.”

“Thou wert not betrayed.” His hands clenched.

“He would not have betrayed me.”

With a heaving inward breath, Turgon strode out. Fëanor called to the guards, “Have word sent through the encampment that I will speak at noon,” he said.

“Already I prefer Túrin,” Curufin remarked. “The Valar seem always to smile on the most banal of creatures.”

“Of course they do. Or rather, did.” Carathir showed white teeth. “Remember Ingwë in Valinor?” His brother grimaced with amusement.

Fëanor flung an arm around Fingolfin's shoulders. “Very well done, brother.” He threw a smile at Fingon and Maedhros.

“It is not over yet,” Fingolfin warned. “In the end, Turgon will admit that he cannot, will not, kill Aredhel's child. But that will not stop him wishing to see what he would call justice. He was held in the Halls of Waiting; he does not know the horror of the Void. To him, Lómion has not been punished for his betrayal. In essence, it is true. He did precisely what the Valar wished when he brought Morgoth down on Gondolin. They condemned him because of Glorfindel, else they might have rewarded him. As for the Man; he chews on an old obsession and Maedhros is right to say the shadow of the Valar is on him. We are far too familiar with their words. He will go to Imladris. Turgon is bound by the Blood-kiss. Tuor is not.”

“Perhaps he is meant to go,” Gil-galad said. “It may be part of the retelling of this tale. But matters could turn very fragile there if he does.” He stepped forward, eyes on Fingolfin. “I should go to Lindon. I know Eriador and Imladris. It would be easy enough to set up an encampment in Lindon. I am assuming this new king of Arnor and Gondor knows he cannot claim Lindon as his own.” There was a strain of yearning in his voice. Fingon came to his side, and Fingolfin put out a hand. Gil-galad wanted to go home. He had ruled over the greatest of the Elven Kingdom of Middle-earth. No-one should forget that. And it would bring him closer to his intransigent lover, Fëanor thought, with an inner smile.

“I know nothing about this Man, Elessar,” Fingon said. “But Glorfindel does. We will ask him.” He looked into his son's eyes. “It will give thee sorrow,” he murmured. “to return there.”

“There is always sorrow, father, but this is important. I know my country, and I also know it will be impossible to completely invest Carn Dûm. The north is simply too big. My realm never stretched as far as Angmar, but I have ridden there. It was ever a dark place.” He moved toward the great table at the back of the room, and Fëanor nodded acquiescence as he took a sheaf of vellum and a stick of charcoal, began to draw with swift strokes.  
He sketched the curve of the Towers of Mist, and where they faltered, crumbling west into Angmar. “These mountains are not properly of the Hithaeglir, but part of the Iron Mountains, pushed south into the north of Eriador. There were reports of wraiths, of shadows. It does not surprise me that the darkness seeped forth, or that it should draw such a creature as this sorcerer. Angmar is what is left of Angband.” He laid down the charcoal, straightened. “I believe Vanimórë has confirmed it?”

“So has Glorfindel,” Fëanor said. “He fought there in later wars, though he never entered Carn Dûm.”

“This Malantur, Mouth of Sauron that was— ” Gil-galad pointed at the map. “could send orcs into the north, down again into Lindon, or west toward the Hithaeglir. We cannot afford that to happen. I would set up a camp to watch. It will serve as a base for when the greater army arrives. There is good hunting, and I can organise a supply train to Mithlond. And thou hast said this war cannot be properly fought until Túrin is older, but the sorcerer _cannot_ afford to let himself be starved, and the orcs will make forays. I do not think we can wait until the child is grown. There will be battles before then.”

“So I think,” Fëanor agreed. “In fact our presence may ensure that they are little more than forays, until the time is come.”

“Gothmog,” Caranthir said, into the brief quiet, and Fëanor heard the lust for vengeance in his voice. “Thou hast said that Vanimórë thinks it will be he who possesses the sorcerer, as does Coldagnir, but a Man's form could not contain it.” He snapped his fingers, turned his head to his father. “Coldagnir. Another Balrog.”

“I vowed that Gothmog would not have Coldagnir.” Fëanor spoke to all of them. “He is another whom is bound to me.”

“ _Father,_ ” Maglor spoke from the well of his heart, half a plea, half a groan. “For Eru's sake...!”  
The air cracked like breaking ice with love and fury and unspoken oaths.

“Peace. I will never be parted from thee again.” He curled his voice about them like loving arms. “But we cannot avoid this war. At least I will not. It is about more than Lómion. Turgon and Tuor must be brought to realise that. Now let us ready ourselves for this impromptu council. Fingolfin,” he added, as his half-brother turned to go. “A moment.”

When the others had gone, Fëanor stripped off his shirt. “I wish to bathe. No,” he said as a servant heard him and turned eagerly to bring water. He smiled. The youth's father had settled in Mithlond through the Second Age. His grandfather had served Fëanor in Tirion, and now did again. Fëanor could never fault his people's loyalty. It had survived oath and doom and utter ruination. Under his smile, the boy, for he was little more, blushed and bloomed.  
“We will go to the lake,” he said. “Lay out my clothes, Borongil. Fingolfin, come.”

He took the path from the pavilion down to the shore, the little bay where the summer sun fell hot. Sitting on a flat rock, he pulled off boots and breeches, waded into the silken kiss of the water. Fingolfin followed him more slowly, no doubt relieved that they were, in theory, within sight of any-one who happened to come down to the cove. But only Fëanor's sons were likely to seek him out and in this matter, they knew all there was to know.

“Shall we let Gil go north?” He drenched his hair, massaged his scalp, and pushed the soaked weight over his shoulders.

“He knows what he is doing,” Fingolfin twisted the great coil of his own wet hair behind his head. “He was — is — a great king and leader. And yes, I think we will need him there. Tuor will take all his household with him. It could get very ugly, very fast in Imladris. They will never give up, that triad in Valinor.”

Fëanor tasted the weight of the wrongs, cruelty piled on cruelty. One day he would taste the satisfaction of bringing those three down. Their names would be forgotten, like smoke in the dark.  
“That I know. We must have patience. This was to be our time, a time of rest, healing.” He laughed a little. “But did I really imagine it would be, with our enemies still bent on destroying us?”

“We seem to be extremely good at making enemies,” Fingolfin agreed dryly. Fëanor looked at him, drank at the brilliance of his eyes, and said, “Watching thee outface that thin-stretched Man, even Turgon...did I ever tell thee I love thee?” He watched with utter delight as something rushed up into Fingolfin's face like bubbling wine filling a clear goblet.

“Now is not the time.” His voice was constricted.

“Really?” He set banter in his tone. “When is the time?”

“The future. Never.” A smile was tugging at the beautiful, unwilling mouth. Fëanor thought of their private moments in Valinor: they could not keep their hands off each other, and their public meetings were a hot, delicious torment of restraint. He wanted that again, and could not believe Fingolfin did not.

“But did I ever tell thee?”

Fingolfin moved into deeper water, struck out and swam. His voice, tuned to indifference, said in mind-speech: _Thou didst not, as thou knowest._

Of course he knew. He had never thought it necessary and, he admitted, had enjoyed the power play, the illusion of control that he did not really have. Fingolfin loved him, but he was no man's puppet.

Strong strokes of his arms took Fingolfin out beyond the cove to deeper water, sleek dark head breaking the gentle wavelets, the taut muscles of his back gleaming. Fëanor followed him until he stopped, treading water. Then Fëanor dived, clasped his hands around Fingolfin's ankles, and tugged him down.

Their hair floated like strands of seaweed and, through the waves of darkness, Fingolfin's eyes burned like drowned jewels. His flesh, even in the coolness of the sea, was radiant with heat, his lips as ferociously demanding as they had been in Valinor. Fëanor did not ponder, until after, that his half-brother had to approach their relationship through the deception of unreality: their rebirth, the drug-magic of _Nost-na-Lothion_ , here in the numinous world of Gaear Gwathluin. Fingolfin could not meet it within the everyday world, not yet. _He does not trust me enough._ Courage had nothing to do with it. Fingolfin had his people to consider. If he put himself into Fëanor's hands, so did he put them, and they had been betrayed once before. The fact was unavoidable, unpalatable yet Fëanor could understand it. Love does not always equate with trust. _And if it takes forever, he will trust me again._ Even the giving up of the Silmaril and the Blood-kiss was not enough for the beloved brother he had abandoned in madness and grief. And perhaps it should not be.

But here, now... _here_ , Fëanor could not think. Their limbs tangled, breast pressed against breast, fingers dragged hungrily over skin and muscle. They were creatures of passion and light and fire who could never slake their need for one another. This was how it had been, this was how it would be. _Together, we burn._

Only when his lungs demanded air did Fëanor draw back, break the surface with Fingolfin beside him. After long breaths of air he struck out for the shore, looked back to call, “A council at noon, do not forget!” He threw a smile, blew a kiss, saw Fingolfin slam a hand, one of the hands that had been all over him, into the water with a splash. Fëanor was still smiling as he slung his clothes over one shoulder, picked up his boots and walked back to his pavilion.

~~~

The horses moved as one, echoing the riders' bodies, despite the fact that one wore a coldly detached face that the other smiled at behind the armour of his own. There was no-one to see them now, but Finrod was accustomed to wearing a mask, and with his companion it was even more necessary.

“Tell me about Lúthien.” He reined in. The little stream plashing down from the steep hills eddied under the shade of an enormous old willow. It was a pleasant spot.

Celegorm swung lightly from the saddle. “Why?” he asked coldly.

“Oh, because I want to know the truth.” Finrod lead his mount to drink, removed the wineskin and cups from his saddlebag and sat down on the warm sward. “She was exceptionally beautiful, enough to catch thine eye after I was gone.”

“I wanted Thingol's Doriath. He might even have lead out his people to join Maedhros' union...” Celegorm made a moue that was more than half sneer. “No, of course he would not have. He would never have permitted his daughter to marry a Fëanorion. I was not thinking clearly.”

“Didst thou fall in love with her?”

“No.” Celegorm took the wine. His hand, voice and eyes were perfectly steady. “There was something in her that promised healing.” He drank, frowned. “It reminded me of my mother, maybe. I did not desire her; thou knowest me better than that. And I was wrong; she had nothing in her, or not for me. She was a fickle creature.” The column of his throat tightened. “When Curufin and I came upon them, she and Beren, after she had thrown down Tol-in-Gaurhoth, after thou— ” His eyes came up, flashed black. “They were walking in one another's arms, and _laughing._ I wish that I had killed them both. I wanted to. They deserved one another.”

Finrod said nothing for a moment, observing the anger-flush that burned itself along Celegorm's creamy cheeks. It had been hard for him to form any connection with Beren, whose mind was so set upon his mission and Lúthien that he seemed barely conscious of any-one else, even in the dungeons of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. Perhaps it had been his own knowledge of love that urged him to help and protect the Man. So heartsick had he been at the end, he did not remember.

“They were not worth it, not thine Oath, not thy death. I regret Elúred and Elúrin, but not the attack upon Doriath, on those thieves and the get of Beren and Lúthien.” Celegorm rose, paced to the stream. “There are not many things I regret, when I think on it. But I should have seduced thee in Nargothrond.” With a turn of his arrogant head. “Thou wouldst not have turned from me then.”

“I did not turn from thee. I thought of all people, thou wouldst have understood an oath.”

“The Silmarils were _part of our father._ ” Celegorm swept toward him. Finrod came to his feet. “His spirit, all that was left of it outside the Void, was within them. _No-one_ had any right to them but us, his sons. _No-one,_ and not some besotted Mortal who would have used one of them as a bride-gift! That was an _offense_ against my father's soul. When _he_ gave up the Silmaril it was to save the lives of people he loved.”

And so he had. Finrod put up his hands, laid them on Celegorm's breast, and felt the hard drumbeat of his fierce heart.  
“There was a very meager chance that we might enter Angband undetected and unknown,” he said. “But I saw no possible way that we would ever leave it. I never believed Beren would lay hands on a Silmaril. He would not have, were it not for Lúthien. But if, by fate or skill, he or I had succeeded I would have brought the Silmaril back to thee. Thou art right. They were for the sons of Fëanor alone to hold. Thou shouldst have trusted me more.”

Celegorm stared, and all the colour of anger ran out of his face. He looked stricken. Even his lips were white.  
“I would have gone with thee.” Pain ran like tears from his voice. He clutched Finrod's arms so tightly bruises would form.

“And how Morgoth would have desired that. No disguise would have shielded thee. The Silmarils would have burned all the darkness from the Iron Hells and _cried out_ if thou or any of they brother had come within reach of them.”

“I could hate thee. Thou didst go to thy death for _nothing._ ” Celegorm released him and spun away.

Truly it had felt like nothing, but Finrod did not say that. He had not planned to talk of this today; he knew that Celegorm detested not being taken seriously. His ego blinded him to the fact that Finrod was playing him as he had been played in Nargothrond. He felt he had the right, and Celegorm spat and sparked magnificently in response.  
“And now—” He unloosed the thin ribbons of his shirt. “Fëanor would seem to have forgotten the Silmarils.”

Celegorm snapped a look over his straight shoulder. “I would not say he has forgotten them. They do not obsess him. Morgoth does not have them. Glorfindel keeps one, but father trusts him, and it will be given to him in time.” A twist of the lovely mouth showed what he thought of the delay.

“Of course he will.” But not yet. That Fëanor was willing to see the Silmaril in other hands even, ultimately, the Valars (for had Orodreth taken it to Valinor, they would never have let him keep it) had certainly gone a long way in mending his reputation, and had been witnessed by all. But he still had to prove himself a king after the manner of Fingolfin or Gil-galad even, Finrod supposed, himself, before Glorfindel would wholly trust him.

“As for the others.” Celegorm turned fully as Finrod discarded his shirt. “They cannot be recovered.” One could not tell from his voice if he were glad or sorry.

Finrod unbuckled his belt, pulled off boots and breeches, and beckoned. Celegorm pulled pack like a recalcitrant stallion before the binding, his desire drew him forward. Finrod undressed him slowly, eyes locked on the shining grey-black ones that burned back into his. He meant to make the most of this time, a year and a day because he did not think that Celegorm's pride would permit him to return once it was over. Yet it would be in his memory, every time they had been together, the two of them or all of them.

Celegorm never alluded to the marriage when they were alone. There was something too opulent, too barbaric in those hot, wild times; they were so far beyond even one man taking another that words could not aid understanding. The experiences had to ease down into the mind, settle and become accepted. Those crazed, white-wolf twins had given them the first taste, and Finrod already knew that he at least could never return to monogamy, even with Celegorm. As for the Fëanorions, they seemed bred for orgiastic loving. Whatever was in them would use up one mate too quickly.

Sex with Celegorm was, in this relationship, like thawing ice that broke, shockingly, into wildfire. There came a point when the Fëanorion would shudder and curse and, with simple, unashamed carnality they would devour one another. It mattered nothing who gave, who received. They lost themselves, sanity, reason, even identity. Celegorm had no defences this deep into the act of sex, and Finrod loved to watch his face, flushed, fierce, utterly open in ecstasy .

They washed after, in the stream, silent until Finrod poured wine, sat relaxed in the sun. A long, lingering summer this, and he was drunk on sex, but not so intoxicated that he did not hesitate before continuing the wonderfully interrupted conversation. This was a new life, but it was not a new beginning; there were none. because nothing had ended.

“It is strange, is it not,” he said. “to hear tales of Valinor, of the First Age told by those who never were there?” Celegorm frowned, nodded, distant once more. “But there was one tale that began to be told in Valinor in those dead years after my rebirth of the last battle, the Dagor Dagorath.” He leaned an arm on one knee and sipped the wine. “It was said that after the battle the Silmarils would be recovered, and Fëanor would give them up of his own will. They would be broken, and their light would flood across the whole world, and gods and Elves grow young again.”

Perilous lights glittered in Celegorm's eyes. “That sounds exactly like the kind of story the Valar would spin,” he said sardonically. “And the same tune as before. To break the Silmarils would be to kill my father.”

“They see him, his fire as a sacrifice to make the world perfect.” Finrod had thought about this often. He had heard tales from the first Men of kings and chieftains whose blood was shed to bring fertility to the earth and tribe. He himself had been a sacrifice during the rite of the Summer King. “And Fëanor would never do it for them, but for something, _some-one_ else?”

“What art thou saying?”

“That nothing is ended, nothing over.”

“I know that, and so does my father. He will bring the Valar to account one day. As for the Silmarils; one is here, one is lost in the earth. Only one is, I suppose, within their reach.”

Finrod followed his gaze to the sky, his mouth tugged by a smile that owed nothing to amusement.  
“Legends,” he said. “I was there when Eärendil brought the Silmaril to Valinor. I believe it to be true that he was sent up into the high airs beyond Arda with it in some kind of vessel. There is no air up there, and he is not a Valar, so in some way Manwë aided him. It is true he fought in the War of Wrath. I do not believe the Silmaril is up there any longer. But Eärendil is.”

“Why think thou thus?” Celegorm had gone tense.

“Whispers, things I have heard, fragments of conversation on Taniquetil. Thinks't thou the Valar would want any but their own hands upon a Silmaril?”

“No.” Celegorm threaded his fingers through his wet hair. “But _every-one_ believes the evening star is a Silmaril.”

“ _I_ believe they took it from Eärendil after the War of Wrath, that they created, somehow, a jewel _like_ the Silmaril, copying from the real one.” Celegorm's eyes narrowed; his silence was hungry, dangerous. “I heard my father talking one day to Ingwë. ' _Like enough to a Silmaril to fool fools,_ ' he said. And then they saw me and said no more. As for Eärendil, what use was he, once he had brought them what they desired? But he had borne a Silmaril long enough for it to wear into his soul. He is exiled out there, I think, and probably insane. It was told there was a tower built for his wife, for Elwing, where she would wait for Eärendil to return from his voyages. It was northward, on the borders of the Sundering Seas. When Vingilot returned even the Elves of Tol Eressëa could see the Silmaril blazing. But it is a lie. He does not return. He is out there with that sham-Silmaril, or dead, and the real one is somewhere in Valinor.”

Celegorm dropped his hands. “It would not surprise me at all,” he said, tight-wound rage in his words. “But whether in the Valars hands or Eärendil's it will not be easy to reclaim. And that is what we will do. One day. My father will take the war to the Valar. Thou hast never spoken if this to him?”

“I think he knows. How would he not? His silence regarding the Silmarils has been...profound.” Finrod ran a finger over the sleek muscles of Celegorm's shoulder, felt him quiver. “And there is something else,” he continued. “The Valar must know by now that thy father was willing to give up a Silmaril. All they have to do is hold some-one he loves. Thinks't thou he would not give up his own life? And then the Silmaril incarnate, the _true_ Silmaril would indeed be broken, as the tale of the Dagor Dagorath declares.”

~~~


	52. ~ What I Am ~

~ What I Am ~

 

~ “Thranduil,” Tindómion said pleasantly. The king's eyes gave one flash of annoyance as they fell on Bainalph, then hardened to sunlit ice.

“Tindómion Maglorion,” he responded. “I was surprised to see you here.”

“It is not only I who will be coming from New Cuiviénen, Thranduil.” This should and would be a matter for council, but Tindómion could think of no other way to engage Thranduil's attention. And he had it. The king's eyes were now firmly on his. The supple mouth tightened. But this was not the same man whom had been forced to kingship on Dagorlad. He had ruled an Age since then. Yet some things could not be forgotten. Doriath was one of those.

“I will never forgive them,” Thranduil told him, ice coating the words as they issued from his throat. “That my son has a _Golodh_ lover makes no difference. Glorfindel is not a kinslayer.”

Tindómion did not say that that Legolas had three _Golodh_ lovers, one of whom certainly was a kinslayer. That was Legolas' business, and if any-one understood the sanctity and power of the Aran Laer, it would be Thranduil who himself partook in those ancient rites. The thought was...almost tantalising. It was impossible to imagine Thranduil giving himself as Finrod had. Tindómion had no specific knowledge of the rite, but could imagine it well enough, and there was an aloofness in Thranduil that denied such wantonness. He was as steel encased in steel, the real man shut sternly behind it. Tindómion was well-versed in the use of masks. Thranduil far excelled him.

“I have looked into the eyes of those returned from the Void,” he said, as the now familiar sense of protectiveness fanned the flames of his temper. “They have atoned for _everything._ Morgoth tried to devour their very souls. There would have been nothing left of the at all save as some rag of shadow within his greater one.”

“So my son tells me,” Thranduil said unexpectedly without a flicker of emotion. “And from what he has said, I believe it. And still, would such dissolution have caused me any grief? I do not forgive.” Tindómion moved, and the king raised a hand. “I am not a fool. I was in Carn Dûm. I heard Vanimórë speak of the sorcerer. I went with Bainalph— ” His eyes shifted briefly to the little group on the portico. “into the madman's mind. I know who the enemy is. And I owe Mae— _Lómion_ my thanks, for it was his sword that released Bainalph when perhaps nothing else could have. I do not forget debts, Maglorion, but neither do I forget past atrocities.”

“None of us do.” Tindómion turned his head away said, very low. “Yet Fëanor will not permit the Gondolindrim to judge and execute Lómion, who seeks to make recompense for his acts.”

“And do the sons of Fëanor seek to make recompense for theirs?” Thranduil asked, soft as the bite of a dagger. “No,” he said when Tindómion was silent because he would not lie. “Legolas has told me enough. He is ever close to me, though I miss his presence.” And now his tone changed, speaking more to a friend of Legolas than the son of a kinslayer. “If they have regrets it is for oaths unfulfilled, not for anything they did in pursuit of them. Is that not so?”

It was true. Tindómion said, “Didst thou ever see the Silmaril?”

Thranduil blinked as if he had not expected that question.  
“I saw it,” he answered. “Dior wore it in the Nauglamir. Too bright for mortal lands, they said it was. And I think that was true. There was indeed a power in it to bind the heart and mind.” His eyes glittered like jewels themselves. “There were some who prophesied it would being ruin on all who touched it, that it did by right belong to the sons of Fëanor.”

“Did Legolas tell thee of when Orodreth took several of us hostage?” Tindómion asked, and Thranduil said, “He did. A bad business.”

“Fëanor made the jewel intolerable to Orodreth; it drove him mad, burned him. And so I think that even in the Void, the Silmarils, because they contain part of Fëanor's soul, would indeed have affected any-one who touched them. Perhaps they even drove Morgoth mad in the end.”

“It could be true,” the king conceded. “They were — are — perilous, but not as perilous as their maker. And he is to come here? How do you expect me and mine to accept that, Tindómion?”

“Fingolfin and he have both claimed Lómion, whom was willing to die in Carn Dûm. And thou hast said thou art in his debt.”

“With Fingolfin, I have no quarrel.” Thranduil leaned against the low, flower-festooned wall. Respect eased into his voice and thinking of Fingolfin, his jewel-edged beauty, his valour, the strength of will that could meet Fëanor's and hold it, Tindómion warmed, blushed. He was still disconcerted at the kiss, but the memory brought with it a shuddering arousal, not shame. Distance had allowed him to come to acceptance of what he felt, what it meant to be of the House of Finwë. His absence from them was a lack, a gaping hole in reality. Thranduil's brows rose a little, but mildly, inquiring. Tindómion said, “Fingolfin is bound to his brother with the Blood-kiss oath.”

“I know.” He smiled thinly. “I know a great deal of what happens in your New Cuiviénen. The Blood-kiss. I was surprised Fëanor would hark back to it.”

“He knows what it means.”

“As do I. Such compacts are familiar to me.” The king glanced at Bainalph.

“How does it...feel?” Tindómion thought of Finrod, of himself challenging Gil-galad: “ _Do it, then. Do it! Thou didst bind me long ago with naught but a look—_ ” Bainalph lifted his head and Tindómion knew there was a binding between he and Thranduil. It was not, he suspected, an easy one.

“I think you know, somewhat at least, being Finwëion. And now, perhaps I may join my grandsire and Bainalph?” A smile was implicit in the words, but it was a smile that glinted with warning, a blade half-drawn. “Bainalph does not need protecting from me.”

Did he not? Tindómion held the king's hard, bright stare, then deliberately broke it to look up at the long balcony whence Bainalph had come, hurried and ruffled and trying valiantly to hide it. There was another wood-Elf just come to the top of the stairs, hair as white as Bainalph's but with a curious glassy transparency to it. Tindómion thought he had glimpsed the man before as they journeyed from the north, but could not give the face a name.  
Thranduil did. “Edenel.” He hesitated then with a polite inclination of his head, walked away, back up the steps to where the other waited. As they turned to go, Tindómion glimpsed the hard beauty of the man's profile and his lips shaped a word of greeting, recognition. He let it die with a brush of confusion.

Bainalph said beside him: “I must thank you, but the king is right. I do not need protecting from him. Legolas said you were noble.” The smile was a sad curl of his lovely mouth. “I do appreciate your intervention.”

“Perhaps I am also prone to interfere where it is not required,” Tindómion replied.

“Thranduil and I are bound.” Gilt-green eyes tracked the progress of Thranduil and the one named Edenel along the columns of the upper balcony. His brows pinched faintly, the long lashes dropped.

“Is that one related to thee?” Tindómion asked. He had seen few Elves with snow-white hair.

“Edenel? No. He is _Ithiledhil._ But his clan live in Alphgarth, my fiefdom.”

 _Ithiliedhil_. Legolas had mentioned them, though he never said much. He pushed aside an odd sense of oppression. With a sudden passion he wanted his father here, to hold him, assure himself Maglor was alive. He reached out with his mind, felt the instant reciprocal embrace and was comforted.  
“If thou wilt,” he said. “I could show thee Imladris?”

Bainalph's smile tipped into pleasure. “I would like that, thank-you.”

Sometimes the promptings of the heart spring from nothing more or less than that: the heart. Tindómion showed Bainalph all that was public. The terraces of the many gardens, the library, the Hall of Fire. Then, because Imladris was busy as it had not been in an Age, sunny, secret nooks where small streams ran through green fern, and flowers overarched seats or lawns of grass. He thought something eased in Bainalph, until he said out of nowhere, “If Thranduil desires, he can use his powers as King to control those who might wish to...even old scores. So could I do the same. I will, of course, bring Alphgarth to war. But if you think I have influence with him, to persuade him not to seek revenge for Doriath—” His eyes searched Tindómion's. “It is difficult for me because my parents were also Iathrim. I understand expediency as well as any-one.” With a tint of bitterness. “But I have no influence with the king, Tindómion Maglorion.”

“That is not why I offered to escort thee,” Tindómion denied, even as he questioned himself. If that had been his motivation, it was well-hidden under a desire to treat gently with this lovely creature whom had suffered in Carn Dûm. “Why wouldst thou think it?”

“Forgive me, then. I am not quite...myself.” Rising like a bird from the seat, Bainalph walked to the balustrade that hemmed the sunlit nook. A curve of narrow steps rose upward through the rock, from which showered heather, ferns, tough, bright flowers. Below, the small cliff dropped again to a shaded green lawn, but there was no way down to it from the terrace unless one would jump or climb. “But I will be.”

“Why wouldst thou apologise for that? There is a look in thine eyes I have seen too often now.”

Bainalph's fingers tightened on the stone. “I have seen it too. You need not tell me that those banished to the Void did not come from it whole or unchanged.” He made a gesture. “It is in Lómion's eyes, in Beleg's, and what did he ever do but love a Man who was damned by Morgoth? In—” A shiver ran across his shoulders.

“In Maedhros' eyes, who lead his brothers to attack Doriath,” Tindómion said. “Memories not only of the Everlasting Dark, but of Angband where he was used and tortured. In my father's, whom was captured by Sauron, taken to Barad-dûr.”

Bainalph turned his head then. “I did not know that.”

“Few do. Vanimórë released him.”

“Did he?” His voice and eyes warmed. “Yes, of course he did. I am sorry. I would not wish such on any-one.” He searched Tindómion's eyes. “You love them all. You would kill for them, die for them, and you are warning me.”

“I would, yes. And no, I do not warn thee. But I would have all stand shoulder-to-shoulder against Angmar.”

“The Wood will not fight _under_ the _Golodhrim_ ,” Bainalph told him. “Nor should it. We have changed since my father died on Dagorlad; the way we fight, and we have fought for a long time, and without aid, as you know.”

“I did not suggest thou shouldst fight under them, but with them.”

Bainalph looked across the valley again. “We know who the enemy is, and I have wondered...What the outcome of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad would have been had Thingol not asked Beren to bring him a Silmaril, had Nargothrond come forth to fight.”

“Useless to wonder,” Tindómion murmured. “And we always will. Perhaps the Doom lay so heavily upon the Noldor that we would never have prevailed against Morgoth.”

“And yet there is a retelling now, is there not? I know that the child is Túrin,” Bainalph said quietly. “Elgalad told me. I know we of the Wood have become entangled in far greater events than my capture by the sorcerer of Carn Dûm, but perhaps that was meant. The Greenwood for Doriath. A poetic symmetry. But for those few of us who are of Iathrim blood, even the Silvans, the Fëanorions are a name of dread and of death. It will not be easy.” He pushed himself away from the baluster, returned to the seat. Thyme and lavender grew about it, sending up waves of sun-warmed fragrance.

“I did not come here as an emissary for my kin,” Tindómion said slowly. “Although I suppose that is what I am. I do not see what else they could have done. The Silmaril was theirs. It was part of their father's soul. I have seen the one Vanimórë recovered, and I have seen Fëanor. I know. Perhaps when thou seest him thou wilt know that my uncles', my father could not have done other than they did. And at the end, Maedhros and my father would have gone into Angband had not the war come that broke the north and ended the Age.” He had heard the news of the theft of the recovered jewels, at that time not knowing whom his father was. He had understood nothing. But he wanted Thranduil and Bainalph to understand and forgive while knowing how impossible it would be for them to do either.

Bainalph looked at him without answering, but he did come back to his side. Looking down, they saw Vanimórë and Coldagnir, the latter's hair a blazing crimson. He walked with a suggestion of fire, a flame's dancing suppleness, while Vanimórë carried all the unconscious and commanding arrogance of a king.

“What kind of a world is this, now?” Bainalph whispered. “Where Balrogs and Uruk-hair walk among us, and not as enemies?” The light danced in his eyes as if they were pools left by the sea on the gold sands of Balar where Tindómion had played as a boy. “And Sauron's son, who has been...” He shook his head. Unexpectedly, a dimple sparked beside his mouth. Tindómion studied him, then felt eyes upon him and glanced back at Vanimórë. Despite Maglor's complex feelings towards Sauron's son, Tindómion could not hate him.  
“A better one than of yore. A world at least where there is no shame and no punishment in love. A world where the condemned are now free. A better world, but not a safer one.”

“I never thought of that at all,” Bainalph said. “We had tales of Tauron, and my mother served Melian in Doriath but what was Valinor or the Powers to us? And when we died our souls remained here. Most of them.” Vanimórë and Coldagnir had vanished from sight. “Why _did_ you show me Imladris?” he asked. His face, delicately masked and outlined by the black battle-markings was inscrutable, but his eyes were not.

“Because...when it is needful, thou canst find a place to be alone.” Tindómion said. “And when I saw thee come to find Beleg, there was a look about thee of one who was hunted.”

Perhaps that was too intrusive. Bainalph blinked.  
“Then I thank you. And yes, I have wished to be alone. There was no real privacy on that journey.” Another smile, more faint. “Of the Noldor it was always said, 'Politics at the point of a sword.' But if you are trying to...seduce me into looking on your kin with favour, your touch is...kind.” He leaned closer, warm and lean, smelling of flowers and spring grass. “Or perhaps they told you that I have always been a wanton, who enjoyed my usage in Carn Dûm, and would it would be easy to twist me around your finger.”

The words tore a path down to Tindómion's heart, unleashing all the pity that he could never show those he loved, because pity was no anodyne for what they had suffered. They had moved beyond it. Tindómion could only love, and wish that he could eat their pain. He thought he had choked down enough of his own after Gil-galad's death, but there was room for more if it would drag some of that blackness out of star-fire eyes. And from these green-gold ones.  
“No-one has said anything of the sort.” He tempered his voice to keep the outrage from it, to lock away the hate that would be directed at Angmar and all those who defiled. “And what I see is a man of courage and beauty, trying to find his way back to life and love. I see thee in _them._ ” Slowly, so as not to startle, he put a hand under Bainalph's arm. “Come and sit a moment.”

There was a moment of resistance, then he came to the seat.

“I will live.” He pressed a hand to his breast. “For my people, for the Wood. I have vowed it, and the king bound me so that I should not fade.”

Tindómion raised his brows in question, but when no answer came he said, “Thou art wrong to miscall thyself, giving power back to those who misused thee. A wanton? I could wish I had been wanton myself. And from what I understand, in the Wood it has never been looked on as a sin.”

Bainalph lifted his shoulders. “You are right of course. Only one person ever named me that, and rightly according to his standards. But I never allowed that to trouble me— ” His face shook, and he looked quickly away. Then he cursed, and Tindómion carefully slid an arm around him. To his surprise, Bainalph sank against him. His shaking gradually ceased.

“Wouldst thou dine with me?” he asked after a time. “It will be a simple meal. The cooks have many to see to, but there will be wine, and privacy. My chambers have been kept as they were before I left.”  
He had failed Gil-galad and his father, and everywhere he saw pain looking out from eyes that laughed and loved and tried to convince one another (most of the time) that their horrors were midget things, not monsters that crouched behind their hearts.  
This was not politics, he told himself. Bainalph was hurt, and whatever lay between he and Thranduil was too complex to aid him. Neither could Tindómion help, but when he rose and held out his hand, Bainalph, after a searching look, inclined his head.

~~~ 

The dinner, as Tindómion had warned was simple, but that was nothing. Bainalph had not accepted his invitation for the food, but for the warmth behind it, the fire that glowed in the Fëanorion’s heart, and which drew him like a lit hearth on a winter night. If the Sindar and Silvans were wind, water, the changing sky, the _Golodhrim_ were obsidian, the flame of dark rubies, both more present and more alien. Their beauty cut hard against the senses. It was compelling, it was dangerous, and oh! How he courted such danger.

He had heard of Tindómion even before Legolas came to Imladris though it was, by then, an old tale from out of the Black Years: Ill-gotten son of Maglor Fëanorion, knight-companion of Gil-galad, whom had loved the last High King to both their ruin. A warrior, a bard, Lieutenant of Imladris.

Dusk painted blue shadows down the valley as they sat back over wine.

“How is Legolas?” Bainalph asked. “How does he fare, so far from home?”

“I have no doubt that he misses the Greenwood, but he is very occupied.” There was the barest hesitation before the last word. “I think he is as happy as he can be.”

“We are the poorer for losing him, he and Elgalad both.” He studied the proud face. “What does he do? Would you tell me of New Cuiviénen?”

Tindómion's gift as a bard was apparent in how he wove the story of the founding of the land and its inhabitants. They came alive to Bainalph's eyes, the passionate House of Finwë, legends written in the flicker of swords. But Tindómion loved them. His eyes blazed with it, his voice decorated their descriptions with gold and silver, precious gems.

“I do not know how much thou hast been told.” Tindómion refilled their cups, flashed a look under black lashes. “Legolas has kept his father abreast of such matters he deems important. But thou hast spoken of Doriath.”

“Yes.” Bainalph stiffened, wary. “I know little. I visit the King's Halls only when bidden.”  
At Tindómion's look, he knew he had said too much, but perhaps he had wanted to. Perhaps he had only waited for a place of privacy to break. He knew warriors whom had done the same after their first blooding, able to hold themselves under perfect control until safety was reached. It was a normal reaction, yet the thought that he himself might succumb to it stabbed, sneering, at his pride. He clenched his teeth.

The valley had drowned in night as they spoke. Tindómion rose, lit a lamp. The light burned copper sparks from his hair, polished the fierce, suave bones of his face. His eyes reflected fire like twin mirrors.  
“Elúred and Elúrin,” he said. “Dior's sons. They live, and they have made their peace with the sons of Fëanor.”

The story both fitted with and broke the one passed down to Bainalph. It was told in the Greenwood that Dior's young sons had been slain by the Fëanorions. Tindómion's skill in storytelling failed him and, Bainalph decided, deliberately. He glossed over the horror of Celegorm's kidnap and rape, but still Bainalph felt it. He came blindly to his feet. Elúred and Elúrin, Daeron, whom had walked out of knowledge long ago. He found that he had pressed his hand against his breast again, where Thranduil had drawn the interlocking runes that held him to the king and the Wood and life itself.  
“And Celegorm, his brothers, his father did not seek revenge for this?” His voice groped for comprehension.

“Celegorm forgave them, and thus so did Fëanor. Or if he has not truly forgiven, for how could he? at least he will not harm them. They joined us for _Nost-na-Lothion._ They are never far away, these days.” He paused, seem to pick over his words before speaking them. “Apparently they are not...sane, hence my grandsire's reluctance to hurt them, but they are happy.”

Bainalph walked to the balcony. “Something else that returned to where it began. They faced their terrors and found them different to their imaginings.”

“It would seem so.”

“I would like to see them. Not sane?” No, how could they be, so young when they had seen the sack of Doriath, terrified and left to die or be killed. He was glad they had found some-one from their home, and who loved them, mad or no. Daeron was a legend, the bard whom had walked away, twisted to breaking by love for Lúthien, or so it was said. And he had found something, too.  
“Beleg should be told. It is no secret, is it? He would have known Daeron. It would comfort him, I think. Eru knows he needs it.”

“It is no secret,” Tindómion said. “Of course, tell him.”

But Bainalph did not leave. It was late, Beleg might be with Lómion, and whatever was between them also gave comfort, too much for him to disturb even with this news. It could wait until the morrow. And he was trying to understand: how Dior's sons could come to forgiveness, how Celegorm, whom they had raped could forgive his abusers (Bainalph could not), how Fëanor whom, he understood from Tindómion's words and simply from the way he looked when speaking of his grandsire, could forgive them or rather, refrain from taking revenge upon them. And how could those Fëanor had betrayed forgive him, even his sons, left to shoulder the weight of the most terrible oath ever spoken? Bainalph had loved his parents, but he could not imagine following his father as the sons of Fëanor had followed theirs, clinging to the oath though it brought them to murder and madness and all, save Maglor, to death. As for Doriath, Bainalph had not even been born there. Its tales came to him through the silver-bright tales of a few. Did he have any right to carry the bloody bones of old hatred into this new Age? What of Thranduil, whom had greater cause?

He stared over the dim gardens. There was music, somewhere, and the sound of falling water an incessant backdrop. It should have been soothing. Bainalph was not soothed. He folded his arms against a shiver, said without turning: “Forgive me if I trespass, but how could you forgive your father for what he did to your mother?”

The silence was long, though not cold. Then he heard the rustle of cloth as Tindómion stirred.  
“ _She_ forgave him. And he was part of me, whether I willed it or no. I dreamed his whole life, and when I saw him...One does not choose whom one loves. If punishment is measured thus, his rape of her was repaid in Barad-dûr. He was made to suffer as she had. The act I can still hate, but not the man. And Eru! He does regret it.”

“The _act_ one can hate.” His chest broke open. He held the pieces together with his palm laid flat over the runes that bound him to the king and to life. _I cannot hate Thranduil. I can hate what he did to me._  
He felt as if he had walked open-eyed into a trap, that all his life he had been doing it.  
“Is that it, then? Love is at the heart of forgiveness?” He spoke tightly to control the tremor that plucked at his voice.

“If not love, then what?” Tindómion regarded him, a deep look of gentleness. “It is so easy to hate those we can never forgive, far more difficult to forgive those we love. It feels too personal. As it is.”

From somewhere, Bainalph scraped together a voice: “I thank you for your time and hospitality, Tindómion. I should go now.”

“Then I will take thee to thy chambers, but thou art welcome to stay a while.”

“It is kind in you, but I should be with my people.” As his wretched body responded, melting into his imagination, though there was nothing but generous courtesy in the offer. It had never mattered before, his instant reaction to men of power and dominance. Now it did. When Thranduil had found him, sent him fleeing — and yes he had fled, he would not deny it — in anger and dismay, it was because his touch evoked this same response. He had been glad, grateful beyond measure, that his captivity and rape had not vanquished his appetites, but had it killed his desire for the King, Bainalph could have denied him without effort. He had been proud of his rebuttal on their journey back from Angmar, but it meant nothing against the rising storm of need in his body.

“I came here to put some distance between me and my people.” Tindómion's smile was rich, wry. “Sometimes we need a little space, or so I thought. And strangers do not ask so much of us.” He reached out a hand, let it brush down Bainalph's rigid arm. The touch was understanding, a little comfort, nothing more, but ah! the _warmth_. It was like to Vanimórë's, and Bainalph _needed_ it. From his folk he would receive complete understanding, support and love, but because he was their prince, he could not allow them to see him like this, clinging to dignity and self-control by a thread worn thin. And if he broke, he would shame them, who deserved more of him than wreckage. (Strangers do not ask so much) They would have more, he vowed. It would take time, but he would lead them to war against Angmar as the man he had always been. But what was that man? A shell who loved and laughed and ruled them with all the wisdom he could muster, with nothing underneath it but the corpse of a youth whose heart had been slain long ago. Well, it would have to be enough. The shell had served him and his folk for a long time.

He did not know if he moved, or Tindómion did or both of them, but he was held close, wrapped in strong arms, against a hard chest, and a spicy heat like amber and cinnamon. His own body went soft and pliant as his cock hardened. He wanted to be taken brutally, to revel in sensation and forget, for a while, what had been done to him. Thranduil would oblige him, but if he went to Thranduil he would have no pride left to him, would not even be able to pretend it. His people would give him what he wanted, and some of them would understand his demand for pain, but they would also see it for what it was, and he cringed from revealing his weakness. He let his head fall back, caught a glimpse of startled silver eyes. Then Tindómion steadied him, a hand under the nape of his neck.  
“How strange,” he said. “to be so free.” And Bainalph recalled the long slavery of the _Golodhrim_ under laws that were unimaginable to any-one born of the forest. If they adhered to them, they could not even find comfort after battle as the warriors of the Wood did. Where did it go then, that lust he felt raging under Tindómion's flesh? Into marriage alone? And if it could or would not?

“Thou hast said thou art bound to Thranduil.”

“I am bound to many,” Bainalph whispered because his voice had failed him. “To Legolas also. Does that matter to him? It is not the same as it was for your people, Tindómion. You are learning that, from what you have told me. Will you...” He passed his tongue over his lips. “help me?”

“Sex would help you?” Tindómion's brows dipped.

“You cannot know how much.” He sought for the Fëanorion's free hand, drew it to his groin, and almost came undone as the long fingers smoothed over his length. “Yes. There is so much you need to learn, Tindómion. But _yes._ ” He pushed against the hand, moaned, and his voice shook. “I want you to take me so hard I beg you to stop, but you will not. Make me beg, make me scream. That is what I am. That is what I want. _Please._ ”

Silver flared bright as a bursting star in Tindómion's eyes. He made a sound deep in his throat, and Bainalph's lips parted as he waited for the firestorm to descend.

~~~

“I will look for him,” Edenel had said to Thranduil knowing that Bainalph had been with Tindómion. _My own kin._

It was less difficult than he had imagined, keeping his distance from any who might see a familiar cast to his features. Imladris was far bigger than he had thought. He had drawn back today when he saw Tindómion, though it twisted an odd yearning within him. Finwë's blood, his own blood ran in the veins of the russet-haired warrior. He had said to Vanimórë he was no longer linked to his brother, and meant it. And lied.

The battle-markings allowed his bared skin to melt into shadow, but his white hair did not, and he was careful, as he followed Tindómion and Bainalph, not to be seen. The Fëanorion was kind, his smile warm. His charm, Edenel thought, had been deep-buried. But freedom was unearthing it. The personality that gleamed out, wary as a newborn, _smouldered._

Edenel knew what Bainalph sought, and understood why he turned to one outside his kin for it. He would have given it, having his own reasons for knowing the catharsis of violent pleasure. Bainalph was wrong in believing that his people would think him weak for succumbing to the horror of his ordeal and seeking release. Edenel, as all the _Ithiledhil_ had experienced the horrors of reaction, hence their own dark, wild rituals. But neither would any of them disapprove their prince's choice. Thranduil would hate it but he must know in his heart, under the pride and the hate that was so clear to see (and always had been) why Bainalph, so damaged beneath his gaiety and gallantry, refused he whom had been the perpetrator of that wound.

He turned, slipped into the shadows. Bainalph would come to no harm in Tindómion's bed.

~~~


	53. - Uncharted -

**Uncharted**

 

“Thou canst not ask me to forgive him.” Turgon stood before the Houses of Gondolin with a face gone livid. Fingolfin saw the same expression stamped on all the nobles' save three: Ecthelion, Lady Cúraniel and Erestor who stood beside his mother.

“No -one is asking thee to,” Fëanor said without either anger or sympathy in his voice. “But I ask this: what wouldst thou do to him, if he came? Execute him for a crime he has already paid for?”

Turgon's face was stony.  
“We do have the right, my lord uncle.” Beside him, Tuor nodded, said, “Aye!”

“I have forbidden execution in my realm.”

“Imprisonment.” Tuor glanced at Turgon. His eyes slid off Fëanor's and Fingolfin's too easily. Despite living in Gondolin, he was uncomfortable here. Hate crusted his bones and discontent his tongue. Unaging life had been bestowed on him, thought Fëanor, and it was not enough.

“How imaginative. He was imprisoned in the Void.”

“And should never have been released!”

“That is not for thee to decide.” Another voice, clear and golden. Glorfindel had come. He walked to stand near Fëanor, yet far enough away so that it might be seen that he was apart. Power of the Elves, not their overlord.

“Eru released the captives of the Everlasting Dark,” he told Tuor. “Irmo took Lómion until the time came. I escorted him secretly to Imladris. With Aredhel.”

“Secretly,” Turgon repeated.

“Of course. Because of this. Because thou wouldst have demanded his presence, kept him from his destiny. He must be free to walk it, as Eru wills.”

“Eru does not care for what happens on Middle-earth,” Tuor dismissed.

“Oh, does he confide in thee?” Fëanor lifted his brows.

“The Valar work his will.”

“Irmo is a Valar,” Glorfindel said. “And I have been made a Power.”

There was a movement, a swish and flurry of skirts as Idril turned and half-walked, half-ran from the gathering.

“There, dost thou not see?” Tuor gestured, “Even the mention of him affrights her.”

Fëanor thought her stride angry rather than frightened. He said to Turgon curiously: “Lómion wanted to wed her. Why didst thou create a law forbidding marriage among cousins?”

Turgon looked from him to Fingolfin. There was a hint of colour on his cheeks.  
“I believed,” he said slowly, “that too-close marriage could cause...oddities in the children of such a union. And Gondolin was isolated.”

“Oddities?” Fëanor wanted to laugh. He knew exactly what lay behind that law. “Thy father was wed to his cousin.”

“It was my mother who warned me against it. But even had it not been so, Idril would not have married him. She feared him, though she hid it so well I did not know it at the time.”

“She feared but was not harmed,” Glorfindel said, and his eyes sought out one in the gathering. Fanari was not standing with her parents, but a little aside. Rosriel was with her. The woman had found acceptance hard. Many looked askance as if suspecting Elbereth might tamper with her again, and her erstwhile supporters had melted away. Thus she remained with Fanari. They did, after all, have a great deal in common.

Fanari, meeting Glorfindel's eyes, raised her voice.  
“Idril asked me to stay with her. I knew why, of course. I will agree that Maeg – Lómion could be alarming. He was intense. But he would have had to go through me to get to her, and he never attempted it.”

Tuor glared at her as if she had betrayed him. She met his eyes unflinching.

“And I think he would never trouble her again,” Fëanor said. “Turgon. Had there been no law in place to prevent cousinly marriage, and had Idril shown a marked liking for Lómion, wouldst thou have permitted their marriage?”

“No.” The word was hard, absolute. “Madness lay deep in his father. What man would wish to slay their own child? And Aredhel was ever headstrong. I would not have mixed my blood with his.”

Fëanor stirred. Had the rarely-mentioned Eöl been mad, or simply a man driven beyond himself by rage and grief? If so, he could well understand, though never could he envisage wanting to harm one of his sons. From the Gondolindhrim came murmurs from those who had eschewed Maeglin, looked on him with suspicion and dislike, or now believed they had.

“But thou didst love Lómion,” Fingolfin stated.

Turgon spread his hands. “If something good came out of the ruin of Aredhel's death it was her son, whom she died for. Or so I thought then. I did not see what he was. He made sure I did not see it.”

“And his betrayal was unforgivable.”

Turgon looked at his father. “Unforgivable.” And then came the anger-heavy echoes, calls for Maeglin to be delivered to them. Foremost among them was Tuor.

“And again we come to the question of what thou wouldst do with one whom has already been punished?” Fëanor raised a hand. “This is a new life, another chance for _all_ of us. Eru gave it to us, as he gave us a New Cuiviénen. Lómion must face the sorcerer of Carn Dûm as he faced Morgoth, and not, this time, betray. Then, perhaps, he will stand before thee.”

“He will,” Fingolfin told him. “He will come, but he will not be one of thy folk again. Neither, I think, would he wish to be even were he forgiven. But my hand and that of the high king is over him. I have claimed him.”

“Thou didst not have the right to do that, father.” The colour fled from Turgon's cheeks.

“Did I not?” There was a subterranean flicker of steel in his voice. “I will not lose him as he was lost before.”

The Gondolindhrim were not about to challenge Fingolfin, or not openly. Fëanor saw their faces, tight, some furious, but all were silent.

“It is not enough,” Tuor said flatly.

“Dost thou wish to kill him again?” Fingolfin asked. “No-one forgets, few forgive, but some things are _over._ ”

“Not for me.” Tuor looked around the gathering. “I will not stay in this place. I will find the traitor and confront him. The Elves of Imladris do not know whom they harbour.”

Fëanor smiled. “It is true that Lómion goes by another name in Imladris. But of course they know whom he is. For Aredhel's sake they say nought. What manner of man would dare to step between a mother and her child?”

Turgon turned to Tuor. “Thou wilt not publicly expose him.” No question but that it was a command. “I saw my sister die.”

“My lord King...” Tuor paled. He moistened his lips. “I am come from the Valar. I am no longer of Gondolin.”

Warning lights glinted in Turgon's eyes.

“If thou goest to Imladris and force them to confront Maeglin, I will hunt thee down and kill thee.”

All heads snapped toward Ecthelion. He shone black and white and silver under the sun.  
“I fought with thee, at the end.” His eyes held Tuor's like a moth pinned to glass. “Thou didst ever pretend to be my friend and Glorfindel's too. But if thine allegiance is now to those who cursed us, do not look for aid among the Noldor. If the Valar wish to protect thee, let them. They will fail, I promise it.”

“Let him go,” Fëanor said into the ringing silence that followed. “Whether he knows it or no, he is also treading the path of an old tale. We have spoken of it. It may indeed be necessary for him to go to Imladris.”

Tuor looked as if he would like to spit, but could summon no saliva to his lips. He strode away without a word, legs stiff, back very straight.

The Gondolindhrim turned inward, talking in low voices. Turgon had not reprimanded Ecthelion, and neither were his words to Tuor open to interpretation. He climbed the curve of the knoll to where Fëanor and Fingolfin stood.  
“I ask permission, my lord uncle, to undertake a search for a realm of my own.”

 _One cannot force anything to take root,_ Fingolfin said. _It must be nurtured. And I think we hast a friend in Gondolin who will keep us apprised of matters. Perhaps more than one._

 _I doubt Ecthelion would think of me as a friend._ Fëanor knew that he had come between Ecthelion and Glorfindel's love like a cleaver. But in spite of it, they had grown into splendour. He wished they had not followed Turgon, but perhaps even that was fated. Had they not died as they did, perhaps there would have been no survivors of Gondolin at all. And he was not thinking then, of Tuor and Idril and their son, but Fanari, who would bear Tindómion.  
 _Fanari will not go,_ he predicted. _But Erestor will if his mother desires it._

 _I think the Lady Cúraniel quite capable of managing a household,_ Fingolfin said. _But it is true she may want her son._

“Permission granted.” He noted Turgon's surprise. “I am not a despot.”

 _Yet,_ his half-brother murmured, and he stifled a laugh.

Turgon bowed elegantly.

“With some stipulations. If thou doth find a place, it shall not be hidden as Gondolin was. Thy people must be free to come here, and thou must come also, with thy wife and Cúraniel, to council when summoned. Likewise others must be free to visit thee. Secrecy,” he added. “Did not save Gondolin.”  
Turgon did not like that, but apparently his objection was not insurmountable.  
“This is not the First Age,” he said. “I did not think to keep it secret anyhow, with my former Lieutenant now a Power and able to see all. No doubt he would inform thee.” A touch of anger in those words. “But I will rule my people as I ever did.”

“Thou knowest _my_ laws well enough by now,” Fëanor said. “And no-one is above them.”

“Thy mother,” Fingolfin interpolated. “She truly believed cousinly marriages produced, ah... _oddities?_ ”

Turgon's eyes snapped to him.  
“I did not lie, father.”

“It never occurred to me thou didst. And thou knowest fine well who put that thought into her head.” Fingolfin stepped to him, took him by the shoulders and then kissed his brow. “We will speak alone, later.”

“If thou wilt,” Turgon acceded. “As for Maeglin...this old-new path he walks must run to its end, I see that. He must be given a second chance. I see that also. But he _will_ come before me, father. My folk demand it. It is not to myself alone, but to _them_ he must publicly answer for his crimes. Canst thou understand?”

“I do understand,” Fingolfin said. “And he will come of his own will. But not to be punished.” He half-smiled, but a warning blazed behind his eyes. “Thy sister would thank thee for thy words to Tuor.”

“He has changed. I barely know him.” He shook his head. “I love my sister.” He bowed again, walked away.

The Gondolindhrim began to make their way back toward their own encampment. Fëanor mused: “I wonder if we will see him in the North when we go to war?”

“It is possible.” Fingolfin looked troubled. “Glorfindel. Thou must warn Imladris that Tuor will go there.”

“I will,” Glorfindel replied. “Though it will take him some time to sail back to the west. Gil?”

“Glorfindel?”

“I can have thy warriors in the west far more quickly.”

Gil-galad nodded. “I must first hold council with them. I will take only the willing. This is to be a military operation, and there will be some who do not wish to be reft from their families.”

They would all go, Fëanor thought. “And we,” he said. “prepare for war. Together.” They clasped wrists. Fingolfin's grip was hard. It would be so easy to pull him closer, into a kiss of pure appreciation. Easy— and disastrous at the moment. Exile for his incestuous desire had never entered Fëanor's mind, neither here nor in Valinor because Fingolfin was as much a high king as he, and they were born to rule. There would come a day when Fingolfin would stand beside him, High Prince, half-brother, lover, and none would think it wrong. It was not a hope, Fëanor knew, but foresight. He could see the shining thrones, the glimmer of the air. In place of the kiss he simply looked into Fingolfin's eyes and smiled. He did not say anything; he did not need to.

OoooOoooO

With their kiss, Bainalph had invited his own ravishment. There was nothing timorous in him, no fear, but every part of him begged, without words, to be dominated. In that moment, Tindómion knew him utterly, and what he needed. It was not something he had encountered before, but it called to his Finwëion blood. He did not question why him? He was there, and that was enough.

Now, both of them naked, Bainalph's hands and knees sank into the coverlets of the bed.

“It is called the _Anguish._ ” He hollowed his back, stretched like a white cat. His head tilted back. Long lashes shadowed his eyes. “I need it.”

Tindómion had heard whispers of this practice through the Ages, the esoteric discipline that prolonged the act of sex, bringing it to the keenest point of pain and pleasure. The thought was intriguing, but alien; he had always considered sex a natural progression from arousal to climax. Control he was familiar with, but not while in the very act, and he doubted his will-power in the face of Bainalph's naked carnality.

“Then tell me,” he said. “what I must do. From the little I have heard, it requires me to withhold my release, and thou doth not encourage such patience.”

Bainalph crawled across the bed, settled himself on Tindómion's lap. He rubbed the crease of his buttocks against the hardness of Tindómion's cock. His eyes were huge, black pools with a rim of gold.  
“Yes,” he said. “You must withhold your release, and make me beg for my own. It will be worth it, I promise you.” He slid his hands over Tindómion's shoulders, into his hair. Under the lust, there were shadows in his eyes, an awful vulnerability.  
“You must take us to the brink, and keep us there until neither of us can endure it. I will beg you, I will weep, but you will deny both yourself and me. I need it. I _need._ ”

Needed to forget, for a time, his torment in Carn Dûm. Tindómion understood. A creature such as Bainalph, for whom sex was so pleasurable, so natural an act, would not shun it after rape, but only something of equal ferocity would burn the filth of the memory away. Yes, he understood, and was not sure he could provide the remedy. Already he was so hard he ached.  
“I want to give thee pleasure, truly. I want to help thee, but I do not want to hurt thee.”  
His mother had been raped. He could never forget that, forgive though he might. With others as strong and as aggressive as he, a touch of violence did not matter, indeed it was a spice. But Bainalph, if he were not awry, was _asking_ for pain.

A smile curled against his mouth. “But I want you to. I want you take me so hard I weep, and I do not want you to stop. In the _Anguish_ pain and pleasure are one and the same. Do you not know how pain can heal? I think you do.” He slid one hand over Tindómion's breast. “There are some who cannot essay the _Anguish_. It is not in their nature, and there is nothing wrong in that. But I think you are one of those who can.”

Pain that gave healing. Yes, Tindómion knew it. When Annatar gifted him with a ring that, he said, would make Gil-galad the greatest king to ever live, free to live by his own laws, it had opened Tindómion's mind to dark, vengeful desires. He and Glorfindel had destroyed the thing. But Tindómion's guilt demanded punishment. He had asked Glorfindel to flog him. It had seemed fitting. After, he had felt purged of uncleanliness.  
“I want thee,” he said. “But for this, I wonder why not one of thine own people who have given it to thee before. Because I assume they have.”

“They would know why I needed it,” Bainalph said. “And I cannot face their pity, not yet. I am their prince. And the king...too many complications lie between he and I. Vanimórë...” He drew in a breath. “He fears his powers too much to touch a man. But thou art almost a stranger, and I think, too, that thou shouldst know the _Anguish._.”  
His thighs gripping Tindómion's waist, Bainalph lowered himself to the bed-covers, lifted long, slim legs.  
“When I walk the paths of dream, there are times I return to again and again,” he whispered. “The _Anguish_ is one of those.” His breath came shorter. “I need it. I want it. Now. Give me all that you are, Fëanorion.”

“How will I know?” Tindómion asked, voice gone rough. “How will I know when to release us?”

“You will know.”

He was oiled and hot, and _Eru!_ so tight. Heat flashed over Tindómion's body. He groaned. Bainalph's fingers dug into his arms, and his lips parted, eyes wide. His lovely face flushed like apple blossom.  
“Yes. Ah, yes!” The word came broken. All his words did after that.  
And Tindómion held himself, even as he thrust harder, deeper, watching Bainalph impaled, the beauty of his body as it arched, bucked, strained. The world contracted into that one sight, his own engorged length plunging. Bainalph's cries urged him on.

He was near to losing himself, letting himself go, as he had on the night of _Nost-na-Lothion_ , as he had wanted to every day, every night since then, and (in truth) all his life. His orgasm was building, unstoppable. Bainalph moaned, head flung back.  
“No.” His hands fluttered. “Please.”

Tindómion stopped, panting, buried to the root. His muscles cracked with strain. For a moment, he thought that Bainalph truly did wish him to cease. The green-cold eyes were blank and wild. He was engorged, his cock dark against the milky flesh of his belly.

“Not yet,” he whispered. “I want to come now, but please, stop me. Tell me no. I will obey you.”

Tindómion set his teeth, feeling the pulse in his cock, demanding release. But through it Bainalph's delicious plea, the tremble of his mouth, plucked at the chords of fire deep within. To keep him so near the edge, not to come until he begged for it...

Slowly he drew back, and Bainalph whimpered, watching him. He might have teased, withdrawn altogether, willing his arousal to fade, leaving Bainalph desperate and unfulfilled. but that was not what one did in pursuit of the Anguish.

“No.” His voice was deep and ragged, a thing torn by the storm of sex.

“Please.”

“Thou didst want this.” (Still thinking Bainalph could not mean him to go on). “All of me.”

Bainalph bit his lip, nodded.

“I want...” He breathed hard. “Art thou sure? Be very sure, because I will not be able to stop again.”

Another nod. His chest rose and fell. His shamelessness was a drug that could drive one mad.

Tindómion did not know, after, how he withheld, but he knew when he lost control, ceased to fear that he would hurt Bainalph. This was nowhere he had ever gone before, and he welcomed it, rode the power, the wildfire of his blood.

Bainalph's hair tossed like white sea-wrack, his skin glossed with perspiration. Tears bled from his eyes. His mouth shaped cracked words. And at some point, some terrible, revelatory point, Tindómion knew why this act was named the _Anguish._  
He could not have achieved it had Bainalph not been well-versed in the act, had he not been what he was. He heard the pleading moans for release and ignored them. It was far too late. He had said that he could not stop this time. Neither could he. The leash was off. He drove into the slick passage with greater and greater savagery and still, in mounting agony, he held back, pushing them both to the brink and beyond, into an unknown world.

There was no measure of time. He did not know if he, too wept with pain, and the mastering of that pain, the colossal pressure that burned like hot lead in his phallus. Images made of fire scorched his mind: Gil-galad, the first and only time in their old life they had lain together, Fëanor limed by the flames of _Nost-na-Lothion_ , godlike, perilous. Maglor in Barad-dûr, giving himself up in fury and passion to Vanimórë, Fingolfin's kiss that had shown him the chains of passion and sin that bound the House of Finwë...  
But he did not imagine Bainalph was any-one else. He did not need pretense. In this uncharted land, there was room only for honesty, for the core of oneself.

Bainalph spasmed under him like a man gut-shot. His arms outflung, he clawed and clutched at the sheets, head moving back and forth. His cries were no longer of pleasure.  
“No, no, no!”

Tindómion heard him. Flesh slammed against flesh, the tightness around him was red-hot, shuddering, making him, impossibly, harder. And Bainalph screamed as if wounded: “No! _Please!_ ”

This was the moment. Tindómion could not speak. He did not need to. They found release together. He was each throbbing spill of seed, the nerves that detonated into white light again and again, racked him from head to feet. It was not pleasure, neither was it pain. Those words could not even come close. It was _anguish._

He took a long time to come back from it. Bainalph lay as one dead, his own seed fallen in pearls on his flesh. Shaking, groping for breath, Tindómion lifted him, felt his raging heartbeat slow. He looked spent and was, fragile, and that he was not. Tindómion swept his fingers through the milky essence and sucked it off, ran his hands over sleek, battle-hardened muscles. No, Bainalph was a warrior; there was no weakness in him. His needs were as feral, as powerful as any Fëanorions, only they lay in submission. He was a paradox.

When he stirred, blinking, his eyes were lustrous, the smile that curved his mouth was rich, languid.  
“Thank-you,” he murmured.

Tindómion shook his head. “I know not what to say to thee.”

“Ah, one cannot speak of the _Anguish_ in words.” Slim fingers skimmed down his cheek. “We experience it, and never forget.” He rested on one arm as Tindómion brought wine, and drained the cup in long swallows. Bruises were rising on his narrow hips, his thighs, his buttocks.  
“Did it help thee?” Tindómion asked.

“How do _you_ feel?”

“Me?” He considered it. He felt scoured, tender, emptied, much as he had waking after _Nost-na-Lothion,_ save there was no lingering soreness. He had given, not received. There was no forgetfulness, either. He knew exactly what he had done. It was frightening, in retrospect, and profound. But he had not done it alone.

Bainalph inclined his head.  
”I feel as you do. That is the glory and healing of the _Anguish._ I wonder...how many of your kinsmen need it.”

 _All of them,_ Tindómion thought.

“Tell them of it, if they do not know. Show them.” He sank down into the pillows. “The last man who had me raped me and tasted my blood. He was vile, He stank. Fëanorion, you live up to the tales of your bloodline. It seems meet to me to be cleansed by fire.”

Tindómion drew him close. “I am honoured that I could help thee,” he said truthfully. “And that thou wouldst show me this wonder.”

Bainalph relaxed into his arms and slept in quietness. Tindómion wanted to stay awake, watching him, thinking about the _Anguish_ , but satiation overwhelmed him, dragged him into sleep. When he woke, the room was dim with early morning, and Bainalph had gone. Only the scent of sex and flowers remained. And a note lay on one of the pillows.

 _I will do all I can to persuade Thranduil to fight alongside you_ Golodhrim _in this war,_ Bainalph had written in a flowing hand. The ink was not quite dry. _I saw more of you last night than perhaps you realise, just as you saw what I am. I trust you, Tindómion Maglorion Fëanorion, and I thank-you. Do not forget the_ Anguish.

Tindómion smiled. He would not forget.  



	54. ~ Speaking of the Enemies ~

 

  
**~ Speaking of the Enemies ~**

 

~ It was home. More than anywhere else he had lived, Lindon was his home. Hithlum was gone under the waves, but even had it not been, he associated it with grief, with ruin and death. Lindon had welcome him with green forest and rough mountains, with clear streams and rich meadows. He had opened his arms to it, cherished it, then unfurled it eastward like a banner until it became the greatest of the Noldorin kingdoms of Middle-earth.* But mostly, he had loved Lindon because it meant Tindómion.

Gil-galad had known the moment the ill-gotten Fëanorion strode into his throne-room, young, belligerence in the set of his jaw, uncertainty crouched behind silver eyes. In a heartbeat his dreams, the hidden desires had coalesced into one person, and it was strange how that one person could change so much, sweeten the bitter, lonely draught of his kingship like honey stirred into sour wine.

The warm breeze in his face, he smiled to liken Tindómion to honey, when he was all passion and pride. Yet through their difficulties, their dance of desire and politics, ran a vein of love that transformed Gil-galad's world, lightened the weight of his crown, his mother's hate. Had Tindómion ever known how essential he was to Gil-galad's happiness? Even at the end. Especially at the end. And despite everything, the reunion with his father he had not believed would ever come, the love he felt for his family, nothing had changed.

He had been so cautious in the early days; if Tindómion did not favour men, Gil-galad yet desired his friendship. He knew what his heart told him, but both his position and Tindómion's age dictated he tread softly. The Fëanorion was too eager to prove himself, and that was not an unnatural urge with the weight of his lineage and violent begetting. He might even pretend love, believing it would please his king. Gil-galad would only accept love that burned the soul.

And it was that. A kinder love would have been easier, never overstepping the bounds of careful flirtation that might pass as a bond between warriors. More relationships than he had guessed had worn that guise in his court. But between he and Tindómion ran the chains of fire that bound the houses of Fëanor and Fingolfin, generation to generation. It was a thorny, inflammatory love, and would have been even without the Laws, as their present tangle proved. Gil-galad fostered regrets, and chiefest among them was that he had not pressed Tindómion harder. But perhaps the Fëanorion had known they could not hide their relationship once it blossomed. They could not even hide their attraction to one another. When Glorfindel returned and told them that the punishment for breaking those laws was harsh (he had never said how harsh) Gil-galad was inclined to defy it, but Tindómion's honour and yes, his love, compelled him to resist.

Gil-galad had brought two thousand warriors, a number that would increase as the encampments became permanent. All his warriors had assumed they would come; they had readied themselves as if there was no question. Heart warmed, he had chosen from them, making it clear that all would come to Lindon, but their arrivals be staggered. There were builders and engineers also. Gil-galad knew the challenges of maintaining a standing army. There must be covered sewers, cookhouses, pens and stables for the horses, butchers and brewhouses. Some of the building work would be done in stone.

After some consultation, it had been decided there would be two encampments. Although they were situated in Eriador, in the high days of old, before Gil-galad had ceded land to the survivors of Númenor, both would have been within his realm.

One camp lay between the Hills of Evendim and the North Downs, the second (commanded by Gil-galad) along the western flanks of the the Weather Hills. Imladrian warriors would undoubtedly scout the land north of their valley, but Gil-galad's concern was that the sorcerer in Angmar would guess it, and send forces south-west, turning along the old East-West road. In their path would lie the Breeland, that little enclave of Men and Hobbits who, Glorfindel said, were simple folk, husbandmen unused to war. There were also Gondorion builders at work on Annúminas, which would become, in time, King Elessar's northern palace.

The first camp would be commanded by Lord Angestel, whose father had served Fingon. Having once dwelt in that region, he was the obvious choice, and had ever been loyal, dying in the last battle on the slopes of Orodruin. With Gil-galad were his household knights foremost of them Vórimóro. Aeralagos, whom Tindómion had brought to his attention so long ago, a stable-hand's son, had also come. He too had died in Mordor, and was one of those condemned to the Void.

Gil-galad rode the perimeter of the camp. It was well-chosen, with good supplies of water, and the hills provided not only concealment, but shelter from the winter winds which bit harder here than the gentle lands beyond the Ered Luin. Winter, he thought, would be the most dangerous time. Orcs did not like the sun, but could go well enough in the dim, cloudy days of winter. And no-one knew what the sorcerer was breeding up there in Carn Dûm. They could not afford assumptions.

But now, the land was benign, summer-drenched, bees in the heather, the little streams low. Tents and pavilions were going up, hunters had ridden out for game. It looked as it had an Age gone by when Lindon prospered from the ocean to the Towers of Mist. Gil-galad had come here to hunt. There had been more Elves then, Nandor mostly, who roamed inland from the Blue Mountains. When Arnor was created as a kingdom, they had withdrawn, leaving the land to Men. They had never come back.

The journey here had been simple. None of them had known what to expect as they formed up in New Cuiviénen, but it was as easy as walking from one room into another. The disorientation of finding themselves in another land had been intense, but brief.

His own pavilion was erected. There was something almost comforting in the bustle of activity in the rising camp, a normality, as if he had reclaimed something from the past. Scouts rode past him, saluting, and a flit of coloured gowns caught his eye as two women bearing trays entered a large tent. They were his mother and Fanari's maids.

Fanari had spoken to Gil-galad privately, mentioning that she wished to see Aredhel. She then suggested that it might be good for Rosriel to spend some time in Imladris, away from the shadow of suspicion that dogged her.  
“If they accept Lómion, to the degree that they pretend not to know whom he is, then they will certainly not be troubled by thy mother,” she had said. “And there are none there now who knew her.”

He would escort the ladies to Imladris on the morrow, speak to Elladan and Elrohir and, no doubt, Thranduil. That might prove interesting. While he bore no ill-will toward the King of the Greenwood, he was not sure if the feeling was reciprocal. And Thranduil had ruled his realm for a long time. It was not likely he would recognise Gil-galad as a high king.

 _And I am not one, not now._  
That, too, was strange. He was certain he was not the only one who lived with the oddness of involuntary abdication.

The presence of Rosriel and Fanari did not trouble him, but there were others Gil-galad could not feel as sanguine about. They were an unexpected addition, and he had questioned the wisdom of including them. He did not know Elúred and Elúrin, had seen them only once, the night of _Nost-na-Lothion_ but he had heard enough.

“They are mad,” Glorfindel told him. “But at least they have found a kind of peace in it, and Daeron exerts some influence over them.”

“Why do they wish to come?” Gil-galad asked. “As I understand it, they have been living nigh to New Cuiviénen since the Second Age.”

“Daeron took them as far as he could from their memories.” Glorfindel's eyes were distant, as if he traced that immense journey in his mind's eye. “But they are Iathrim. So is Thranduil. As for the rest, they love Daeron, whom would see Beleg. And they like war.”

Seeing the twins, Gil-galad recognised the truth of Glorfindel's words. They were fey, dangerous. Their eyes were beautiful; pure lapis-blue and guileless as a child's, but there was no sanity behind them. Daeron was different. He was their anchor to the world. Gil-galad had never seen hair of his colour. It was polished pewter, and everything he had ever lived was in his moss-green eyes.

“Thou wilt ride and camp close to me until we reach Imladris,” Gil-galad had said, wanting them under his eye. He did not, could not, trust them. But they had said mildly: “Of course, lord.” Daeron had inclined his head, and Gil-galad returned the gesture. Now, as he passed the women's tent, he heard the twins light voices, Daeron's musical timbre. He reached his own pavilion, and signalled to the captain of the guard, Tondthor.  
“Watch the ladies,” he murmured. “But subtly.”

“Thou art worried for their safety?” Vórimóro inquired softly, when the man had gone.

“Let us just say that we know that pair are...unpredictable. But Glorfindel was right. Daeron does ground them.”

Servants brought in warm water for a bath, and he dismissed Vórimóro with a word and a smile. Their occasional trysts had ended after Gil-galad's return from Finrod's realm. The revelation that had sent Tindómion away to Imladris had a likewise stunning effect on Gil-galad. Finwëions, it seemed, might look away from their bloodline temporarily, but would ever be drawn back to it. If Tindómion remained aloof, there were others who would not.

Gil-galad had considered the implications and there was not a breath of shame in his recognition of this most fundamental of truths. It seemed natural, something he had always known but never had a name for until now. Yet Tindómion was the fire in the core of his heart, just as Fëanor was Fingolfin's. Never insensitive, he had said to Vórimóro: “Forgive me for taking advantage of thee. I know we are encouraged to live freely now, yet thou art my friend, and I would not hurt thee.”

“Perhaps I took equal advantage of thee, Sire.” Vórimóro responded. “And thou canst not lose me as a friend, ever.” He paused, then said in a low voice: “Never did I truly believe, as a youth, I would serve thee as a knight-companion. It was a child's dream. Yet thou didst give me that honour.”

“I wanted the best,” Gil-galad said, remembering. “The most loyal.”

All the Noldor enjoyed competitive games, whether noble or servant. Gil-galad had first seen Vórimóro at games held in his honour. It had been before the War of Wrath, and long before he knew Tindómion. Vórimóro had been among the javelin throwers and later, the wrestling. Though he had not been placed, it was from youth rather than any lack of skill. Gil-galad had seen his potential, and called him to the palace. Traditionally the knight-companions of kings were nobles, but there was no law requiring it, and it was not unheard of for talented commoners to rise high by dint of their skills. That, he thought, was fair. He would be the first to admit that the Noldor were snobs, but they were far-sighted enough to overlook it. Sometimes.

The best. The most loyal. They had been. All of them.

OooOooO

Elladan and Elrohir had been told of Gil-galad's coming, and were waiting beyond the Bruinen ford. There was, in fact, quite a reception, faces he knew and others he did not. Tindómion was there and, as their eyes met, there it was, the spear striking, the starburst in his breast. No matter how often he saw Tindómion his reaction was the same, this sudden stealing of breath, blood gone to fire in his veins.

Thranduil was absent. but there were Elves in forest colours lead by one man with hair white as milk. Gil-galad guessed this to be Bainalph of Alphgarth, the one taken to Carn Dûm. His lovely face unfurled a coil of unexpected lust in Gil-galad's loins.  
Of the others, he picked out Beleg Cúthalion without hesitation, as beautiful and silver-haired as one who stood close beside Vanimórë. Sauron's son was as Gil-galad remembered him from Mordor: all high cheekbones, passionate mouth and extraordinary eyes, as if an erotic god had fashioned him for sin then decided, almost on a whim, to also make him lethal. His companion must be Elgalad. For him, Vanimórë had recovered a Silmaril and stepped into _Fos Almir._ Elgalad had eyes like melt-water, a tender mouth. There was something unworldly about him, denied by his warrior's carriage and the suave, strong bones of his face. Gil-galad had never seen Aredhel, but she looked too much like her father for there to be any doubt, and the tall man beside her was moulded in the true Finwëion stamp with eyes like ice. Gil-galad knew him from the visions he had been given in the Void. It was not difficult to see why Fingolfin had claimed Lómion.

As he raised a hand, Gil-galad's party drew rein. Elladan and Elrohir rode forward.  
“My Lord, we welcome you again to Imladris.” They bowed, and gave the names of the others. Gil-galad introduced Daeron and the Iathrim twins, and then formality was discarded as Beleg strode forward. He set his hands on Daeron's shoulders, and there was a moment of silence wherein they stared at one another. Then the men embraced, close, hard, as Elúred and Elúrin watched, little smiles curling their mouths. Fanari came down from her horse and hugged the _peredhil_ , then Aredhel, who kissed her on the mouth and said something that made them both laugh. They crossed the bridge, talking, flooded the great ward with a river of steel. From many windows, faces watched.

“It is very good to see thee.” Vanimórë's whorled-bronze voice sounded as Gil-galad dismounted. “I would thank thee now for my captivity among the Noldor. Those were grim times, yet thy treatment was considerate.”

Accepting the hand held out to him, Gil-galad gripped it, felt the strength.  
“Whom would have imagined, then, that we would meet here?”

“Certainly not I.” With a faint smile, Vanimórë turned to Rosriel, still sitting straight-backed and straight-faced in the saddle. He extended a hand. “Lady?”

For a heartbeat, Gil-galad wondered if his mother would refuse. But she did not. She took the hand that lifted her to the ground, and returned the bow with dignity.

Thranduil ascended a long flight of stone steps. Gil-galad had admired him during the Last Alliance, for all that his father would not acknowledge the Noldor High Kingship. Oropher and his folk had paid the blood-price for their independence. And there had been a breath-stealing glory in their fierceness.  
Thranduil had held his people together after the slaughter on Dagorlad and seen out the brutal siege. More, he had survived the war. This was not the fell and grieving prince crowned on Dagorlad, but a king whom had ruled and fought for another long Age after it. His haughty porcelain face showed no emotion as he looked at Gil-galad. After a long moment, he took the last steps down and crossed the ward.  
Gil-galad did not move. Thranduil had made his point by sending Bainalph to greet him. One could not help wondering how he would greet Fëanor.

The king of the Greenwood moved with the fluid, half-reined wildness of the Silvans, though he was pure Sindar by birth. His eyes were as clear and cold as the sky over the northern wastes as he stopped a pace from Gil-galad. The two men exchanged mute bows. But for the stamp of a horse, the jingle of harness, it had fallen quiet. Every-one was watching.

“King Thranduil,” Gil-galad said clearly, allowing no nuance to taint his tone.

“High King Gil-galad, that was,” Thranduil responded, equally cool. “It has been long.” A pause. Then: “There was grief to spare for your death.” He offered a hand. They gripped wrists, and the tension faded like a sigh.

OooOooO

They met in council almost immediately. Gil-galad was housed in Elrond's rooms, and paused only to change from half-armour to tunic and breeches. Tindómion did not come. Gil-galad had not expected him to but he was at the council. Elladan and Elrohir were there of course. Thranduil and Bainalph came, Aredhel with Lómion. Beleg seated himself nearby. Vanimórë stood with his shoulders propped against a wall as if to watch rather than participate. The doors were closed and guards posted outside. The long balcony overlooked a garden where more soldiers stood to ward off the curious.

Lómion's face darkened when Gil-galad spoke of Tuor and his intention to come to the valley.  
“To foment trouble, it would seem. Valar-touched, that one, as my mother was.”

“I cannot escape my past,” Lómion said dryly. “I have already accepted that.”

“The folk of Imladris know whom he is.” Elrohir's hand cut the air decisively. “Even if they ignore that knowledge. There is no-one now here who lived through the First Age, and none of Gondolindhrim heritage. They all have gone. Those here now were born here or in Mithlond; most of their families did not return to Middle-earth, but they are loathe themselves to depart. They wish things to be as they were, and will not take Fëanor as their king.” He shifted restlessly. “They love Imladris, and feel that they have nowhere else to go.”

“Could Tuor cause trouble?” Tindómion asked. He slanted a look along the table at Lómion. It said everything. They had come to an understanding.

“Anything is possible,” Elladan allowed. “But no-one here has any loyalty to him unless we have spies in our midst. And we do watch for such a thing.”

“I have a blood debt to Lómion,” Thranduil said flatly, as if it did not matter. Bainalph added: “When I was imprisoned— ” His long fawn lashes fluttered closed for a heartbeat. He had a light, silver voice. Tindómion was looking at him with something under the pity; something... _heated._. Gil-galad repressed the flick of jealous fire that snapped to life inside of him.  
“They bound me with chains,” Bainalph said steadily. “They were melted into the rock in some way. Lómion cut through them with the black sword that cleaves iron.” He rubbed his wrists then laid both narrow hands on the table. “I also am in his debt.”

“And I am his friend.” Beleg touched Lómion's arm. The gesture was one of closeness.

Aredhel's eyes burned. “I care not how much my father loved Tuor, nor how many follow him. Lómion is _my son._ And now he is accepted by my father and Fëanor. I swore I would see him thus. This Tuor, and Idril too, are not suited to this world. Let them come, then. They will find a famine where they thought to find a feast.”

“So we hope.” Vanimórë straightened. “But there will be some similarities to the story of Gondolin. We already know that.”

The twins shared a long glance.  
“Tuor and Idril are kin to us,” Elladan murmured. “He is Eärendil's sire. For so long we looked to the Evening Star and imagined him.” Vanimórë gave a cat-like blink that Gil-galad did not miss. “We owe Tuor hospitality. But Imladris is ours now, as it was our father's. We will not welcome him if he comes to sew discord.” He pushed long fingers into his hair. “How many follow him, my lord?” he asked Gil-galad. “Do you know?”

“Glorfindel told me that in Gondolin five hundred warriors swore allegiance to him. There are less now. They were mostly younger sons, and it appears some of them are uneasy with what he does. What he is.” He had not seen, but apparently Tuor had been furious when a number of his men asked to be released from their oath to him and return to Turgon, whom had been forced to step in and use his authority. “Perhaps two hundred only. We know the kind; those who believe this second chance, this new sexual freedom is wrong, that the dead should never have been reborn.”

Thranduil looked aloof as a cloud, contemptuous. Bainalph raised his brows.

“We prepare for storms then,” Lómion said.

Gil-galad said, “Tuor believes Idril is still afraid of thee.”

Now it was Lómion who looked contemptuous. “She need have no fear of me, now.” He paused, frowned. “I was obsessed with the idea of owning her, having a legitimate claim on Turgon's throne. If she had not been his daughter I would not have wanted her. I was shown, very clearly! where my true desires lie.” He flushed, but continued: “I have nought to say to Idril or to Tuor who killed me. I am _not_ the man I was in Gondolin.”

“I have a great deal to say,” Aredhel spoke through her teeth.

“And yet it would be better if thou didst not,” her son responded, laying a hand over hers. “I do not see Tuor as a rival. Not any longer. That book is closed for me.”

“It is not for him,” Gil-galad said quietly.

“And _that_ is madness.” Aredhel rose and stalked to the balcony in a leaf-swish of robes. “So he still feels my son must pay?”

Vanimórë's voice slid like rich smoke into the room.  
“That...mental poison is the Valars' doing. He is only a tool to test thee, Lómion. And thou doth still hate him. They are wagering on that.”

“I hate him, but not because of Idril.” The flush faded, leaving him salt-white. “He rose so high. Turgon loved me, I have no doubt, because of my mother, but I was not a pure bred Noldo, therefore was not good enough to be accounted his heir, nor to wed his daughter. Tuor brought tidings from Ulmo, _that were ignored_ and yet gathered favours. He did not even have to try. I hated him and envied him that.”

“The man he was is worthy of respect,” Tindómion said, and Gil-galad's eyes snapped to him irresistibly. “As a puppet of the Valar he is worth nothing. Ignore him.” He lifted wide shoulders in a shrug. “He wants thee to bite, Lómion. Give him nought. It will be hard, I know. It was hard for me in Lindon, with the word _Fëanorion_ a curse. But I have no doubt thou canst do this.”

Aredhel swung round, biting her lip. Then, mercurially, she smiled. “Yes,” she mused. “The Valar could never bear being ignored. I doubt those they have marked are any different.”

“They are not,” Tindómion agreed with a memory-glance at Gil-galad.

“When they come,” Aredhel continued. “ I will talk to my niece. To see how she has become the woman she is now. It is disappointing.”

Gil-galad could not speak of Tuor's likely exposure of the child Túrin, not with Beleg here, but he would warn Elladan and Elrohir privately. Seeing Beleg, and the long pain in his eyes, he thought that such knowledge might be crueler than anything Tuor could do to his erstwhile arch-rival. He said, “We should speak of encampments and patrols.”

Rather to his surprise, Thranduil seemed to accept that he had come, that the Noldor would be fighting in this war, though it was abundantly clear that the Greenwood would not be under their command. Neither had Gil-galad expected it.

“What of Aragorn?” the king asked as they leaned over maps. “I believed that he meant to claim back Arnor.”

“So he will,” Elrohir said. “There are builders already at Annúminas. But the last messenger from him told us that Arwen is with child. He will not come north this year, I think, though he may send more soldiers to protect his workers. But they are war-weary, the Men of Gondor and Rohan, and there are rumours of troubles in the East. By the time this war comes, a new generation will have taken up arms. But for now, we cannot look to Gondor.”

A breeze swirled into the room, tugging at the hangings; it carried the scent of mown hay from lower down in the valley, roses, honeysuckle. The drowsy scents of summer. Talk of war seemed far away and out of place. Bainalph's head came up in a sensual movement of appreciation. Thranduil's eyes turned to him as he said, “We leave soon to return in the spring. We will take the north, from the borders of Angmar to the Hithaeglir.”

“At least,” Vanimórë said. “Thou hast time. Not for any orcs that are already in Angmar, but for Malantur's...experiments. Every creatures grows as its nature dictates. It has been tried before: trying to increase growth.”

“The monster in Carn Dûm,” Lómion murmured.

“It rarely works.”

“What of this Coldagnir?” Thranduil asked. “Oath to Fëanor or no, do you trust him?”

“He is part of this war, like Túrin,” Vanimórë replied. “He knows that. He fears it. If it is Gothmog he faces, which I think we must be prepared for, then he will fight. Their...connexion goes back to beyond the world. Gothmog, even then, was manipulative, but such relationships are well-nigh impossible to extricate oneself from. Certainly they are impossible to forget.”

Gil-galad did not realise he had stiffened like a battle-stallion hearing the trumpets until the violet eyes came to his. Gothmog. His father's killer, Fëanor's slayer.

“Can he win?” His voice was metal-hard. “We know – or we believe – that Gothmog will attempt to possess Coldagnir. Can he do so?”

“Ainur can create their own forms, though one ready and waiting would save time,” Vanimórë responded. “There are many ways this war could play out, Gil-galad. We must not become blinkered. Yes, Coldagnir will fight Gothmog. Originally he was a gentler soul, not a lesser one. They both have the same powers, if Coldagnir would but realise it. But let us not fix our minds only upon Gothmog.” His eyes swept them all. “Melkor has an army in the Everlasting Dark, all the souls who joined with him, served him.”

“So more than Gothmog could come through?” Thranduil sounded unsurprised, Gil-galad noted, unafraid.

“The souls would have to connect with those here they wished to use,” Beleg offered. “And there are still Men in Carn Dûm.”

Vanimórë said sombrely: “I would like to save them if I could. Had I not become besotted with freedom like a drunkard over wine, I would have returned to Mordor. I would ask that if possible thou wouldst capture them, spare them.”

The twins glanced at one another, Thranduil tapped his fingers on the table.  
“It is wise,” he said then. “To disarm an enemy before he strikes. If it is within my power, I will essay it.”

“As will we,” Elladan and Elrohir spoke as one. Bainalph nodded, unspeaking.

“Any – all – of thee are in danger if thou doth fight in Angmar at the end.” Vanimórë warned.

There was little more to speak of as yet. The council ended – it would be the first of many. Tindómion walked out beside Bainalph, slanted him a look. Bainalph drew closer to him, and smiled. It was a warm, private smile, and Gil-galad was not the only one to watch the little interaction. Thranduil's face hardened to marble.

“Istelion,” Gil-galad said, with something of a snap. “I have messages from New Cuiviénen.”

A gleam of humour showed in the silver eyes as Tindómion bent his head. He knew that any messages would be conveyed mind-to-mind.

They did not speak until they arrived at Gil-galad's rooms, though they walked very close, hips almost touching. When the door was closed upon them, Gil-galad moved away, said, “I know why thou didst flee. And thou shouldst know why I did not.”

He _felt_ the Fëanorion bristle, though he did not defend himself from the word. Tindómion exhaled slowly.  
“I know why thou didst not.”

“Then tell me.”

“In whatever guise, it is love, is it not? Which, as a child, thou didst not have.”

Bitterness curled Gil-galad's mouth.  
“I never spoke of this to thee aforetime. I would not sue for thy pity.”

“ _Pity?_ ” Tindómion exploded. He strode to the balcony, leaned on the polished wood. In the afternoon sun, Imladris glittered like a thousand jewels. “Compassion,” he said. “Not pity. And yes, I had love. But Fingon _always_ loved thee, Gil.”

“I have no doubt of that at all.” He propped a hip against the baluster. “Yet he had many responsibilities, and was often away, and my mother controlled our interactions so stringently. I adored my father, and Fingolfin too, but I was as much in awe of them. They blazed like distant stars. How could they be kin to me?” He saw Tindómion's head turn.  
“How could they not? Thou art a true-stamped image.”

“A child does not know that, Istelion. Fingon was my father, yet seemed remote from me. So, thou knowest why such love does not trouble me.” He looked away. “He was so unhappy. All of them were. The House of Fingolfin, the House of Fëanor, bound with blood, and love and hate. And Doom.”

“When I understood that thy father and Maedhros had been lovers,” Tindómion murmured. “I wondered how any-one could live when their heart was gone.”

“Dost thou blame me for dying?” Gil-galad asked him straightly.

It was the right question. Or the wrong one. Tindómion whirled on him.  
“Thou shouldst _not_ have died. I fought with thee shoulder to shoulder through Eregion, on the Dagorlad and in Mordor.” The words lashed. Tindómion's eyes burned like light-struck glass. “Thou wert reckless, like Fëanor, thou didst leave thy guard behind. Like Fingolfin thou didst go to face thine enemy alone. The High King I loved would have seen _all_ his enemies, and slain them. Thou didst race to Sauron like a maid to her lover, and ignored any other threat.”

Over the long span of time, Sauron's words still melted like poison through Gil-galad's mind. And poison they had been.  
_He never told thee of Ost-in-Edhil did he? When I gave him the ring which would have made thee ruler of half the world? I touched him, all of him, and he responded, eager as any human trull._

Tindómion had never spoken of it.  
“What happened between thou and Annatar in Ost-in-Edhil, Istelion?”

The beautiful face went still.  
“He gave me a ring for thee. Thou knowest that. And almost I gave it to thee.”

“Before that.”

There was genuine confusion in Tindómion's eyes.  
“I was a guest of the Dwarves in Khazad-dûm for a sennight. Celebrimbor took me there. Annatar was absent at the time.”

Gil-galad hesitated. He had seen the vision too many times during his imprisonment in the Void.  
“Sauron taunted me,” he said. “With thee. With thy father too, and I loved Maglor.”

 _Hot as his grandsire. He and his father proved most pleasurable._  
“He said he had thee,”

“He said _what_?” Tindómion looked as if he had been struck. “And thou didst believe him? _Sauron_? I warned Celebrimbor of him! I did not trust him.”

“Thou wert vulnerable then, dreaming of thy father. Thou hadst left me – our _business_ , unfinished. Think thou he did not know that?”

He did not see the blow coming, or expect it. Lights danced behind his eyes, and his own temper found an outlet and sprang up like blue fire. He caught Tindómion by the arms.  
“Thou hast wondered why I acted so fey, and I have told thee.”

“Then thou art insane,” Tindómion raged. “Or were. Of _course_ he would have taunted thee.” He surged back against Gil-galad's grip.

“He tempted thee with thy father's whereabouts, and with me. He had a way into thy mind.”

“This is utter foolishness!” With a wrench, Tindómion flung away. “I did not bed with Annatar. What in the Hells dost thou think I am?”

“A Fëanorion,” Gil-galad told him. “And thou wouldst not be the first to bed with the enemy.”

The air quivered and settled in the wake of Tindómion's exit.

“Thou fool,” Gil-galad said to the empty room, and slammed a fist against the wall. “Does thou think it even matters to me?” But if that were so, why had he laid it there before Tindómion?  
_I thought he accepted it. Celebrimbor has to live with far more._

 

OooOooO

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *There he (Sauron) found that the power of Gil-galad had grown great in the years of his absence, and it was spread now over wide regions of the north and west, and had passed beyond the Misty Mountains and the Great River even to the borders of Greenwood the Great, and was drawing nigh to the strong places where once he had dwelt secure. Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age. The Silmarillion.


	55. ~ Echoes of Burning ~

 

**~ Echoes of Burning ~**

Tindómion rode out, his anger taking him across the Bruinen and south of the East-West road. Nothing troubled the summer evening, though the warrior in him remained alert. And then he cursed. That Gil-galad had believed Sauron's outrageous lie incensed him. A warrior must master himself. The enemy always sought out the weak spots, in mind and armour both.

He reined in his mount, patted the sleek neck. He had dreamed in Ost-in-Edhil, first of his mother's rape, a shattering experience. In his dreams he _was_ Maglor and, while he might – did – accept incest among the Finwëions, Fanari was his mother, the woman who raised him with love, and graced him with the ability to forgive.

He did not think there was anything odd in that dream, awful though it was. It had to come, with the other memories of Maglor. He had known it would, and dreaded it. But it had been a dream within a dream. Annatar had come to him in the aftermath of his fury, offered him the ring, showing him visions of he and Gil-galad as lovers, and he had woken alone, lust spent.

That had been the true awakening. But the next day Annatar had come again, as if the dream of him had been a precursor, a long-flung shadow. As it had been. But nowhere in Tindómion's memories lurked an interlude of sex. It was impossible. Elves did not forget, and he had felt no desire for Annatar.

And yet...had he not experienced the Maia's charm first hand? He saw it in Vanimórë. It was potent. Now he had to wonder if Celebrimbor's obdurate resistance to Annatar's expulsion from Ost-in-Edhil was at least half-rooted in that rich and alien soil. Tindómion had not considered it, then. His cousin was obsessive when anything touched upon his craft.

More slowly, he rode back to Imladris. Evening gilded the valley, made the falls run golden. He took his lap harp and a wineskin, climbed to a little alp beside a thread of a waterfall, and fell into his music. He did not count time when he played, did not consciously reach out to any-one, though he sensed his kin, close as breathing, feeling his turmoil, knowing that he did not wish to speak of it. Again, fury spiked. Gil-galad had _believed Sauron_. That was where the dagger went home.

_He knew thy weakness. As he knew mine._

Tindómion had spoken little to Celebrimbor since the Noldor's return. If he intellectually understood Celebrimbor's passion, he could not feel it in his heart. There was a bond, however, there could never be less than that among the Fëanorions. He had been horrified at the manner of Celebrimbor's death – horrified and angry. It need never have come to that. Had his cousin only looked aside from the bright light of his art, much would have been different. But one could chew on the tragedy of the Noldor forever, and still it would taste bitter.

 _This is madness,_ he flashed. _Nothing of that nature passed between Annatar and I._

_And what if it had? None of us knew, then, what he was._

Lights showed in Imladris. Tindómion had not realised that the evening had slipped into night. He let the notes die under his fingers.  
 _Almost from the first, he taunted me with my father. As if it amused him._

_No doubt it did. He spoke of thee, sometimes._

In his mind, Tindómion could see Celebrimbor. It was morning, so far East, and the sun lay like water on his cousin's black hair, crystal-grey eyes shockingly vivid under ebony lashes. He looked much like his grandsire.  
 _He wanted ingress into Lindon, and I did not understand Gil-galad's intransigence in the matter. Annatar said to me that thou wert the key. I agreed with him._

_He would have used me as he used thee! That was all there was between us._

_Thou art Fëanorion. Wouldst thou not know the truth?_

Tindómion rose. _I know the truth. I remember_ everything.

 _What dost thou fear? I remember also, and still I feel as if I were betrayed by a friend. He was always fascinated by the Noldor. Were we not the most like him?_  
Celebrimbor spread his memories out like a banner. He was in a suite of rich rooms, not his own; Tindómion was familiar with his cousin's home in Ost-in-Edhil. Annatar's then, with touches of ruby and black. A chill struck Tindómion to see Sauron-Annatar. He might have been in the same room, watching. His flesh prickled.

Both men were talking with animation and, through his discomfort, Tindómion could see that Annatar's enthusiasm was unfeigned. A difficult and unwanted thought intruded: How long had Sauron served Morgoth? Perhaps he had indeed relished his freedom.

_And yet, he wanted to control us._

_To claim us,_ Celebrimbor said. _For us to be his. Yes._

They stood at a great table, shoulder to shoulder, heads turned toward one another, eyes like fire. Tindómion felt the lightning strike before it was visible; so familiar, that moment of reciprocated lust when nothing else in the world matters, and he remembered Annatar standing breast to breast with him in the East Court of the _Mírdaithrond_ *, warm breath feathering his mouth. _“The Noldor ever burned too brightly for the narrow trammels of Aman,”_ he had murmured. “ _Gil-galad would do anything for thee..._ anything. _Ask him to permit me into his realm and I will find thy sire and thou shalt find...so much more.”_

Annatar lifted one of Celebrimbor's hands, placed his own against it. Each was strong and slender. Artists' hands. He seemed to measure them, an unknowable smile bending the corners of his mouth. Then he linked his fingers through Celebrimbor's. Their eyes understood one another.

The kiss was neither hesitant nor gentle. It was a fusion of savagery and desire, the kind of hunger that required no words of explanation, not then, not ever. Black hair melted into white-gold. Lean muscles shifted. Tindómion, racked by arousal, and guilt at the arousal, shuddered. Yet there was such a perfection in it, such _truth._ His cousin drew the vision away. Summer stars blazed again, cool against Tindómion's hot face. He breathed deeply of the tranquil air.

 _We never spoke of it,_ Celebrimbor said, his voice like hot wine and fire. _There was no need. And I have never felt shame for it, only anger that I was deceived. It was not an easy relationship, nor could it have been. There was too much competition between us, in every way. Yet it was glorious. That, I do not regret. Bedding with him was not the mistake. Trusting him was._

Even for a Fëanorion, that was breathtaking, but on the heels of shock came comprehension. A meeting of minds was even more rare than physical attraction. When both came together, whom could fight against it?

 _Ah, cousin._ Tindómion bent his head. He could not say, _I wish thou hadst listened to me, to us._ Celebrimbor had not wished to, might not have even had he known Annatar's identity. He would not have trusted him, but their art would have brought them together regardless. There it was. The Noldor were not afraid to face the darkness, even to embrace it.

_And so, art thou afraid to look deeper, Istelion?_

Tindómion gazed , across the leagues, into the gem-clear eyes. The brow-tilt was Fëanor's. The sorrow was all Celebrimbor's own.

 _if there was aught to see, I would not,_ he replied. _But I swear there is nothing._

_A memory hidden behind a memory. Never forget the powers of the Ainu._

_Why would Sauron bury a memory that I would hate?_ Tindómion questioned. _Surely he would find it more satisfying that I remember?_

 _I know not. Perhaps he left it as a seed waiting to grow. What is time to one of his kind, or ours?_ Celebrimbor paused. _When I was in his power, it was the one thing he did not taunt me with. He still behaved as if we were lovers._

With a tremor that shook him to the core, Tindómion could imagine the tender words and touches amidst the torture.  
 _Hells, I wish we could have reached thee in time._

They could not. Like his grandsire, Celebrimbor had been too eager to confront his betrayer. But they had seen the body, preserved by some dark thought of Sauron's, impaled on a lance, a grisly banner, a warning. It had seemed the last degradation, a final insult visited upon Fëanor's grandson, but now Tindómion saw there might be another reason: perhaps Sauron could not, even in death, let Celebrimbor go. Vanimórë would know, and Tindómion found he wanted to ask him if there had been anything real beneath the living duplicity that was Annatar.

 _Yes. There was._ Vanimórë answered his silent demand. It was as if they joined Celebrimbor in New Cuiviénen. The two black-crowned heads turned to look at one another, and the movement echoed back in time to Annatar's chambers.  
“Understand though, that he chose what he shared with me. He would never admit to any weakness, not to me or any-one. But he wanted the Noldor, ah, how much! He desired brilliance and beauty. He hoped that thou wouldst accept his rule. I think he had no choice but to try what he did. Even he had dreams. Sometimes I believe that his life as Annatar came as close to joy as he would permit. And thou, Celebrimbor Curufinwëion, as close to love as he could feel.”

“Not love,” Celebrimbor refuted, cutting the air with his hand.

“Then I do not know what else to call it.”

“Thou wert not in Ost-in-Edhil. I did not see thee until...after.”

“No, I was in Mordor. But once before its fall, I saw the city from afar. I was curious. Is it not strange, this...obsession with the Fëanorions, with the House of Finwë that afflicted both Melkor and Sauron?” He moved across the room. It was roofed, but unfinished, a chamber in the palace. Lovely patterns of blue wove through the marble walls, reminding Tindómion of _Osteledan,_ Celebrimbor's mansion in Ost-in-Edhil, that had gleamed blue at night. Vanimórë touched the stone, traced the inlay.  
“He could never speak to me of such craft. Mine is war.” He looked over his shoulder. “The One Ring was not his Silmaril. They already existed, flawless jewels, each one unique, waiting to be set into his crown of the World. Thou, Celebrimbor, Tindómion, Gil-galad, even Glorfindel, whom he dared not see, guessing that one reborn might see through his deception. Maglor, if he could but find him.”

“He made a habit of breaking his jewels,” Tindómion snarled.

Celebrimbor said, “Not all of them, I think.”

Vanimórë raised his brows. “Not all of them, no. Not thou.”

“Neither didst thou break.”

Sauron's son looked surprised.  
“I was a tool, not a gem.”

“A thing may be both. I should know. And so would he. Everything he created was beautiful.” At the unexpected and bitter passion in his voice, Tindómion reached out a hand, felt his cousin warm, living.

“And toxic.” Vanimórë's mouth dropped the last word like a lead coin. “But thou...Hadst thou broken, he would have despised thee. He could not bear flaws; he made the One Ring perfect. Only thy willing surrender would have satisfied him and he knew, in his soul, that no Finwëion would ever surrender to him. And thou didst not.”

A fraught silence dropped between them. Tindómion could see, if not hear, their private words. He did not feel excluded. For all his cousin's words, there was pain here, a firestorm of it fuelled by Fëanorion pride and power.

“I would thank thee.”

Vanimórë inclined his head in a gesture strangely formal.  
“It was all I could do.”  
He lifted Celebrimbor's hand, laid his own, palm flat against it. Tindómion saw the startled remembrance in the crystalline eyes, felt the quiver run through his cousin's body.

“Do not think thou dost not haunt his mind.” Vanimórë laced their fingers together. “Then and now, Celebrimbor.” The rich curl of the name could have come from Annatar's own mouth.

And then Tindómion saw Annatar. He and his son were nothing alike, or so he had thought, but the smile was an exact copy, as was the expression in the eyes.

“Obsessions,” Vanimórë whispered, before the room burned with the recreated memory of that first warring, ravenous kiss.

It threw Tindómion back to Ost-in-Edhil, to a night of storm. _A memory hidden behind a memory_ , Celebrimbor had said.  
Of course. The air turned to ice and flame as he saw how easily Annatar had breached his mind. Gil-galad had said he was vulnerable, and so he was, enough to fall into the illusion Annatar wove for him.

He sat down abruptly, flesh damp, and cock hard. Imladris glowed below him. Sickness churned in his stomach. He quenched it. He had seen too much horror to vomit over this revelation. _“I did not bed with Annatar,”_ he had said. That was true, as far as it went. What they had shared was not the most intimate act of sex, but nevertheless...

Without thinking, he picked up the harp again. His fingers drew a discordant breath from the strings. Anger running high, he forced it into music. Again, he was aware of his father, of Fëanor, Fingolfin, Celebrimbor and, to his surprise, others, Caranthir, Celegorm, Lómion, all sensing the tumult in him, waiting for him to open to them. Gil-galad, too, was there. He shook his head, needing time, unused to this intense closeness, though he knew none would judge him. He thought of Celebrimbor, of Vanimórë, both used by Sauron, and the pride in them that shed shame like rain on hot metal. His teeth set hard. He tried not to think. He wanted, now, to lose himself.

Imladris was quiet when he raised his head at the glimmer of movement. The horned moon showed a a lilt of hair white as the waterfalls, yet the face and body were dark. Only the wood-Elves battle markings could dim them to other Elven eyes. For a moment, he thought it was Bainalph, but the figure seemed taller.

“You need not stop,” came a voice that stroked down his memories. Burned steel and hearthsmoke . He tilted his head to capture and hold the elusive echoes.

“Your playing is...remarkable.”

He did not know the voice. Yet...  
“All I have,” he said, “is from my father.”

“Maglor. It is more than skill. It holds the world-song.” The stranger turned, wide shoulders cutting the shoals of stars, and looked out over the valley. His hair shone like pearl.

Tindómion frowned, plucking low notes.

“I intrude. I apologise.”

“No. Wouldst thou have me play for thee?”

The man came closer. Buckles caught the light, a pommel set with a gem, a brief glint of pale eyes. He was close enough to touch, yet his face was invisible. Such was the art of the Silvans.  
“I have long wished to hear the _Noldolantë._ ”

A strange choice, for a wood-Elf, but Tindómion thought now he was Sinda, like Thranduil. The warrior was as tall as he. And still, an odd choice, yet there had been no malice in his words.

“There is no hope in that lay,” he said.

“And still.”

Yes. And still. It was a master-work. It was pain and passion, tragedy and unending grief forged into transcendence.

Tindómion was both a warrior and bard, and had the gift when he sang, of imparting visions to those who listened. He gave them to the Greenwood stranger that night, from his father's soul that had wept into his before he ever met Maglor. He knew that Maglor heard him and listened. Then he knew no more but the tale itself, rendered into poetry and music by a fierce, loving and broken heart.

The _Noldolantë_ is a long tale. The summer night had passed its nadir as Tindómion sang. Only the waters of Imladris sounded, lorn and deep, as he let the last notes fade.

The stranger had seated himself. He did not speak for a long time. Tindómion could not. He felt hollow, as if a great fire had scoured him clean. He did not sing the entirety of the _Noldolantë_ often. The song had its own Power.

Soundless, the man touched his arm, gripped it. His fingers were steel.  
“One day you and your father will fashion another lay.” His voice came from some far-away place. “One of vengeance –and triumph.”

“Thou hast foresight?”

“Somewhat. Not enough. But this I do foresee.”

He smelled of sweet, dark musk, the scorch of metal, something precious burned a long time ago, leaving this lingering trace. Tindómion thought of diamonds cast into flame. Diamonds can burn...

“I am privileged,” the stranger said. “to have heard you. Thank-you. Why did you play here alone when you have graced the courts of kings? I know Bainalph was with you last night. Does that trouble you?”

“Should it?” Tindómion wondered, and lost the scent he was trying to trace to its roots. “I know there is somewhat between he and Thranduil.”

“There is a great deal between them,” the other said softly. “But Bainalph is free to bed with whom he wishes. It has always been thus among us.”

“I know that now. But no. That was...” There were no words in any tongue for that experience. “It does not trouble me.”

“He chose well. There is great catharsis in the _Anguish_. But not every-one can essay it. It is too easy to lose control. Strange.” Tindómion started at the touch of a hand on his face. But for the moon-pale gleam of his hair, the man might have been a shadow. “From all I ever heard of the Finwëions, self-control was never their greatest attribute.”

“Not always. But it exists.” Tindómion thought of Fingolfin, steadying his shattered heart to rule after Fëanor's death, never showing his grief, of the seven sons living without their father, of Maedhros after Fingon's death, even himself living in a world that seemed dead with Gil-galad gone from it. He did not know how they had mastered themselves, how he had endured it. And then, and more terribly, there were the souls of the Damned, who had outfaced the Everlasting Dark itself, steadfast in denial. He said this, the familiar pain deepening his voice.

“Yes. Ah, yes.” Warm fingers traced his features, and Tindómion held himself still. He had once seen an old blind Man do the same, to form a shape out of the dark behind his eyes. But this Greenwood warrior was not blind. Heat spread into his loins.

“Do you know it?” he asked. “The healing of the _Anguish._ ”

“I have reached it many times.” There again, the dark-bright sense of something precious, burning. And his voice...it did not hold the Greenwood lilt, nor the wind-and-water tones of the Sindar, but was precise, accentless.

“And hast thou given it?”

“War, and what war brings to us all, are effective, if brutal teachers, Tindómion.”

The image of Annatar split his mind again.  
 _I was undone by lust._ Helpless, as the Maia took on the guise of Gil-galad, recreating that time in the dim hallway of the palace, rain on the windows, their bodies hot, pushing, thrusting against one another in savage hunger until they spent. Tindómion had awoken sticky with spilled seed. _His and mine._

The _Noldolantë_ had cleared his mind, but not of rage, and not of a sense of having been used, his love mocked. And that was not the worse. All very well to say he had not known. Neither had he, but he _should have_. That he had allowed Annatar's sorcery to overcome him was a weakness.

Yet Celebrimbor was anything but weak-willed.

He thought of the agonising glory of the _Anguish_ , of Bainalph pushed beyond endurance by exquisite torture. Perhaps Sauron, too was a master at giving it.

He found that he had risen, the stranger slid up his body like a caressing wave; long, lean muscles flat against his own. His face was a finger's breadth from Tindómion's, yet still invisible save for the pale gleam of the eyes.

“What would you?” the stranger whispered.

Tindómion ran his hands up the man's arms.  
“Why?”

After a pause, the warrior's breath came warm and sweet.  
“I cannot answer that question. I should not have followed the call of your harp. But I did. Finwëions.” There were so many complications in the word. Grief and love were the uppermost, and Tindómion did not understand why that would be so in this Elf of the Wood. He did not understand his own reaction. Here he was thinking of Annatar's deception, yet hungry for one he did not know. Except...No; he could not say the stranger was familiar in any real way. Tindómion knew he had never met him before.

But this, perhaps, was a natural reaction. The Noldor, or most of them, still had to learn that there was no wrong in it. Tindómion believed that completely, but there was something else at work here; he felt it running under his skin, pulses of light and shadow.

“Magnificent, and so...unspoiled.”

Unspoiled? To his shock, he felt the warrior tremble against him, then draw away.

“Tomorrow night, if you wish it. I will send some-one to bring you to me. Oh, do not worry. My people can be very discreet.”

“I am not worried,” Tindómion said truthfully. “I am simply puzzled. I do not believe I need the cleansing of the _Anguish,_ not now.”

“Ah, Fëanorion, not now, perhaps not. I think it would take much for you to surrender yourself so completely. But perhaps _I_ do.” The kiss came from nowhere. It was a storm with darkness at the heart, the ache of loss. Pain. It left him, too, aching.

The stranger moved like mist. A fall of hair, and then he was gone, and Tindómion was alone, staring over the valley. He shouldered his harp and followed, but as he climbed down and went to his empty rooms, he saw and heard no-one else.

When he woke, to the warm glow of morning, he wondered if it had been another too-real dream.  
But the scent of burning diamonds and perfume was caught in his hair.

OoooOoooO

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Mírdaithrond – Halls of the Jewel-Smiths.
> 
> This was found on Tumblr (provenance?) and reminds me of Edenel, after he and the others were sent from Utumno.
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://tinypic.com?ref=14y4fad)  
>   
> 


	56. ~ Shadows Of Summer ~

  
**Shadows of Summer**

 

 

 

~ “Why him?”

He had stopped trying to avoid Thranduil. It could not be done with any success, neither here nor in the Greenwood, and certainly not in the war they had begun. Tension hammered itself across his shoulders. He stared down the tiers of Imladris.

“Because,” he said without looking at the king. “he is nothing to do with this.”

Thranduil knew, of course. Their binding left them open to one another. He would see the Anguish stamped into Bainalph's very soul.

“With _us,_ ” the king said. His tone was mild, as misty snow is mild before it rages into a storm. “So you used him, in fact, a Fëanorion.” A small exhale of laughter. It did not prepare Bainalph for the arms that pinned him against the wall, the furious ice-blue burn of the eyes. Or for the kiss, like punishment.

He fought his instinctive softening, the blood flooding into his loins, and wrenched his head away.  
“I did not use him. I wanted him. Only those whom have known pain can reach the _Anguish._ ”

“And you think _I_ have never known it?” Thranduil demanded. He drew Bainalph's head back. “Did I not give you the Anguish, and in full measure?”  
  
“You did.” He shuddered in short, hectic bursts. “And I know you have known pain enough; on Dagorlad, in Mordor, when your wife died...I know. But...You know I will not come to you. We are bound, and that is _my_ fault. I did not know, then, then that you were cruel.” The king's eyes flinched. His grip tightened. “I do have a choice, binding or no. You told me you did not hate me, that you hated yourself, but you are not the man to hate yourself for long. You know your worth. You are the king, the very heart and soul of the Greenwood. Eventually your hate will turn back on me, and you will hurt me again.”

Thranduil blinked at that. He shook his head. “Never.” he said, like a vow. “We have spoken of this.” He drew Bainalph's head closer, and their mouths touched. “Trust me.”

Bainalph whispered, because he had no voice: “You could take me now, and my body would welcome it.” Ah, how much! “but my soul would protest. You will never truly forgive me for offering myself to you.”

Something flashed in the king's eyes, doubt, anger? Bainalph did not know. His lips parted to say something, or to kiss – and a voice called Thranduil's name.

They both turned as Edenel came light and fast up the steps. He said quietly, dark brows drawn hard: “Níniwen is here. She arrived from the Havens but moments ago.”

Thranduil went utterly still. He said nothing at all. Bainalph remembered (and the memory was too vivid, too brutal in his mind) the Midwinter feast, Thranduil toasting the return of his queen. He had looked straight into Bainalph's eyes, his own like the nails of a crucifixion.

The King slid his hand to the base of Bainalph's neck as they stared at one another. There was a flavour to his kiss like fury, desperation. Bainalph almost fell against him. When he was released, Edenel caught and held him. He watched the gleam of golden hair sweep down the stairs.

“It is better this way.” His breath was short and harsh.

“For whom?” Edenel demanded. “He embraced the earth-rites after Níniwen's death. Do you think he will return to the man he was before he had you?”

“I think...yes, I think he will. He has proved himself. The bindings will endure. It would be easier – ” He shook his head helplessly. “If there were a way to roll back time...! If I could live that night again, and not go to him...” He touched his hand to his breast.

“Bainalph,” Edenel said, so gently. “Do not torment yourself.”

“But I must,” Bainalph answered simply, smiling. “Because the blame is mine. Oh, Mother of Earth, of I could change it...!”

Memory was a living thing to the Elves. He cast himself back, touched the roots of his life. Deep they delved into the rich earth, and he followed them –

Firelight crackled gently, casting rosy shadows over Thranduil's face. He had leaned back on the padded settle, long-limbed, eyes like wintry jewels. His head was tilted as he listened to something Bainalph was saying, words that became audible over the moan of the wind outside, until Bainalph melted into them, into his body, so many years ago. But some detached part of his mind knew that this was memory.

Words, he thought. A courtesy laid over the space between them, and meaningless. They spoke as lovers speak, hardly listening, completely attuned to one another's bodies, the language that needs no words.

He hardly recognised Thranduil's face, the hot survey of his eyes, the desire he did not try to hide. His heart skipped awkwardly. They sat very close together; he could feel the warmth of the king's body sinking into his own.

They rose without speaking and Bainalph held the door for him. The halls of Alphgarth were quiet, but the muted sound of music and voices drifted from other rooms where his household gathered. It was the Day of Souls, a time when the dead were remembered, when they could come home if they chose. A perilous time of old magic, old sorrow. Bainalph himself had lit the first of the Memory Lights to show the dead were not forgotten, that for this one day and night they were welcome. There was danger in it; the houseless yearned to return to a living body. And for that, there was no remedy unless it lay at the ending of the world.

Lamps cast a dim glow on the tapestries as they climbed the stairs. Thranduil turned, when they reached the wide corridor, brushed Bainalph's hip. Heat scalded over him, slammed fire into his loins. He reached for the door handle, hands unsteady, cast a swift look around. The servants had lit the fire and lanterns; there was a jug of wine, water. Drapes hid the windows. The bed was covered by pure white fur.

Thranduil smiled warm as the lamps, took his heart and devoured it. “Thank you.”

“If there is anything else you need...?” He fought his reflexive blush, knew his eyes told Thranduil everything.

“Then I shall call you.” Still smiling. Call _him_ , not summon a servant.

“Of course.” He inclined his head and walked away to his own chamber. He undressed, bathed, wrapped himself in a house-robe of finest wool. With hands that still trembled, he unbraided his hair, combed it, coiled it loosely at the nape of his neck. The removal of two long pins and it would tumble to his knees. His reflection in the mirror showed flushed cheeks, eyes that glowed. He was not afraid. Not in the least afraid. He was _hungry_.

In the place beyond vision, in Imladris, Bainalph closed his eyes. This was the fulcrum of his life. All he had to do was remain in his chamber. He could live with the desire, control it. He did not intend to remain untouched; he would embrace all the rituals of the forest to bind himself to Alphgarth. There would be many lovers, whether he bedded with the King or no. But he had wanted Thranduil to be the first. His soul knew what the King would do to him, with him, and he ached for it. His hand swept down to his loins. He could pleasure himself, but that was not what his body needed.

 _Do not,_ Bainalph told the youth he had been. But that fey creature with eyes bright as spring did not want to listen. He had been pointing his short life toward this moment and, knowing what it would bring, Bainalph shivered, felt it echo back in time to his younger self.

He crossed to the bathing chamber, took fragrant oil and prepared himself. The feel of his own fingers brought scalding blood into his cheeks, a hitch into his breath. He laved his hands and face, touched the tumultuous thunder of his heart.

And even now, far in the future, and knowing all the bitter, destroying hurt that lay after this night, Bainalph found to his dismay that he would not wish it undone. The stride that carried him into the hallway to open the door of the King's chamber was buoyant, eager. When Thranduil, naked and hard on the great bed, sprang to his feet, the ferocity of his lust was a firestorm in his eyes.

Bainalph pulled himself away. Somewhere in Time that night was now, had never ended, not for him. The stone of the baluster pressed his hands bloodless. He straightened against Edenel's strong arm.  
“No,” he whispered. “I cannot.” He looked up into the strange eyes. “It is nothing, _nothing_ compared to what others have borne.” He raised a hand, touched Edenel's face. His second lover, whom had lead him into the dark and ancient rites of the _Ithiledhil_ , who could bestow the _Anguish_ with the voluptuous savagery of one whom had suffered, mind and body, beyond comprehension. At least, Bainalph thought, it was beyond his. He hoped his imprisonment in Carn Dûm had given him a measure of understanding, but he doubted it. Edenel's torment had delved into places where no pleasure remains, only agony. Bainalph was suddenly and acutely ashamed of his own selfishness.

“Cruelty has many faces,” Edenel answered levelly. “Do not think that yours is of little worth. I know it was not. Thranduil broke your heart. You only lived because you bound yourself to Alphgarth.”  
  
“It does not matter any-more.” Bainalph heard the weariness in his voice. “It is easier this way.” He looked around, but despite the many people now in Imladris, this was a quiet place. Nevertheless, he dropped his voice. “He has...explained to me why he acted as he did. I do not even know if it was an apology. He does not, I think, hate me now. Or not yet. But he will not pursue this now that the Queen has returned to his side.” A chill struck him then. “Unless... it is part of his punishment. I cannot even guess any-more.”

“I do not believe it is.” Edenel's fine black brows dipped.

“Well, the Queen will be needed in this war,” Bainalph said, trying to pull his emotions into order. “And I must greet her, later.”  


OooOooO

Imladris held a semiformal feast that night for the Queen of the Wood. The Noldor of Imladris, though the hosts, were in the minority, as might be expected. Lomion, who would rather have been elsewhere, pursuing a matter that troubled him, cast a glance around the hall.

Vanimórë was not there; he spent the evenings with the Men and the Uruk-hai, insuring they would not stray and making preparations for their imminent departure. Coldagnir did not attend. He too, would be with Vanimórë. Daeron and the twins were absent. Beleg was seated on the dais. Aredhel sat next to Lómion, and beyond her were Fanari and Rosriel. Elgalad had joined the Greenwood for this evening. Elladan and Elrohir, as the Lords of Imladris, were upon the dais, Thranduil and his wife on their right. She was slight and fair, her face rendered memorable by a pair of uncommonly dark eyes. Her expression was serious. Whatever joy of reunion had passed between King and Queen had been in private and was now passed. The talk had moved to war.

Lómion intercepted a brief smile from Tindómion which he returned. The Fëanorion was on the dais with Gil-galad. The two of them, so like to Fëanor and Fingolfin, presented a striking image that drew Lómion's eyes back again and again.

His mother's head was turned to Fanari. The ladies were speaking in low voices and their conversation too, revolved around war. All three of them had lived through times of conflict. Fanari had seen Gondolin's fall. A jagged piece of guilt stabbed like a broken rib. As if she sensed it, or saw a change of expression on his face, she sent him a quick, warming smile.

He had wanted to see Fanari privately, but she seemed never to be alone. She was lodged with Rosriel, and the thought of apologising before a complete stranger repelled him. His mother had said, with a trace of asperity: “She would have stood thy friend for my sake. Yes, thou must certainly speak to her.”

Friendship: that was what he had needed so badly in Gondolin. Others learned to respect him, but none who joined his house became close. Perhaps that was his fault; he concealed his uncertainty and grief behind a barrier high as the Gate of Steel he himself had built. Ambition and obsession had left no time for friendship, which was why his acceptance in Imladris was so important to him now.

As it was, he had come upon Fanari earlier that day, and for all he had rehearsed what to say to her, he was caught unprepared. She and her maid came quickly around a corner carrying folded armfuls of cloth which toppled as she swayed aside to avoid a collision with him. He caught the bolts of material reflexively and found himself face to face with the woman he had hated for barring his access to Idril. And she had been no serving-maid he could sweep aside, but Penlod's daughter, utterly assured of her own place in the city.

For an awkward moment, neither of them said anything. He thought he could see falling towers in her eyes, fire and smoke.

Then she said, quite calmly, to her maid: “Daemoth, go ahead.”  
The woman bent her head and moved away down the passage.  
“Lómion.” She did not even pause on his name. “Well met. I was hoping to speak to thee.”

Startled, he said, “Yes?” then, not knowing what to do. “May I help?” On the word, he relieved her of her bundle of clothes..

“I thank thee. Some of the women from Carn Dûm,” she started to walk quickly. “have only the rags they journeyed in.”

Aredhel had said she had been busy with the new refugees. As a woman whom had been raped, Fanari would take a personal interest in the health of the Angmar women.  
“How are they?” he asked.

“They will live,” she said. “But they will take time to heal. We are short of healers. And we are going to need them when the time comes.”

“Lady – ”

She stopped, and so did he, so abruptly that a robe slid from the pile. Glinting dark red and gold, it fell to the floor. It took him back, body and mind, to a sunlit chamber in Gondolin, to Fanari and a tapestry that lay at her feet: fireflowers, a harp with the Silmarils clinging to its strings. Her son's insignia now, but then, only a foreshadowing. He had tipped his wine over it, a fatuous act born of madness. As if from outside himself, he could see the insanity and despair in his eyes.

“I am sorry.” He felt himself flush.

Fanari studied his face and he remembered that he had never seen her look frightened, only watchful, as now.  
“The Valar made a battleground of thy soul,” she said. “They used thy pride and passions against thee. Against all of us. But thou didst nought to _me_ , Lómion.”

“I hated thee and let thee know it.”

“That thou didst.” She shrugged. Her hands fluttered. “Thou art not the same person. So let us begin on a new path; one of friendship, I hope.”

“I would like that,” he returned, bewildered by how easily she put enmity aside, or seemed to. Perhaps there were more important things on her mind. He did not, he realised, know her at all.

“Good.” She smiled encouragingly, began to walk again, then, after a pause: “I saw it all: I saw thy father try to kill thee, Aredhel's death. I watched as Glorfindel and Ecthelion cast thy father over Caragdûr.” And so had he. Watched. And said nothing. “I can imagine – only that! – what that would do to thee, but I did not truly fear thou wouldst harm Idril, at least not until that day, until the end.”

He said harshly: “Lady, I dreamed of raping her, and thou also. Do not forgive me thus easily.” He waited to see something – hate, fear, disgust in her eyes.

“It is strange, looking back, how little I knew.” Her voice was still calm, a woman reminiscing of days gone by. “I was sheltered. We all were. We had already heard, of course, of what orcs did to those they caught, men and women both. But I never believed _we_ would do such things. I never thought Idril or I were in any danger of rape.”

And she had learned that there was nothing men would not do, be they Elf or Orc.

“Rape was an abomination among my father's people as well as the Noldor.” And it hurt to think of that time, that life. He could never have guessed what would happen, what he would become, how very far he would fall. “And yet...I imagined it.”

They came to the entrance of the healing wing. She took the clothes from him.  
“Dost thou think of it now?”

“No. I swear it.”

“Rape is violence,” she said, inflexionless. “ not desire, nor lust. Orcs use it as a weapon. So do Men. It is an expression of power and hate. But thou didst not act on thy thoughts.”

“I would have,” he said, knowing it for truth. “After, had I not died.”

“But thou didst die.” She moved to a doorway, then turned back. “Thou wilt have to apologise to Idril, Lómion.”

“I mean to.” He dreaded that inevitable meeting because Tuor would be there, and he had no doubt that neither he nor Idril would accept his apology as easily as Fanari, or, indeed, at all. He did not expect it. He was not sure, even now, what he had intended to do to Idril and her young son, rape or murder or even to drag them away from the battle.

“From what I saw of them in New Cuiviénen, they will force thee to a _public_ apology,” she warned. “Do not let them turn it into anything more.”

“Like a public execution?” he asked dryly.

“Or a duel to the death,” she agreed. “Speak thy words and walk away. Avoid them thereafter. There are more important things.”

He nodded. “I know.” But it was not going to be as easy as that.

She spread her hands. “Well, then...if thou wouldst talk... Apart from Aredhel, we are the only Gondolindrim in Imladris.”

She left the invitation hanging as she opened the nearest door and slipped inside. The muted murmur of voices drifted out, faded as the door swung shut. He did not follow. It was the first privacy those women had known since leaving Carn Dûm.

Perhaps he _would_ speak to her of Gondolin. As she had said, there was his mother, but she had died before he dwelt there. Then he thought of his black hatred. Unable to reach Idril, it had struck at Fanari. But if he could believe – really believe – that this was a new life, maybe he could make recompense.

Tuor and Idril....He closed his eyes; the peerless faces of Fingolfin and Fëanor illuminated his mind, and the shadows fled from him. _There are more important thing._ It was true. If he could navigate the treacherous rapids that would soon sweep down upon him...He touched a hand to his breast as if making an oath.

 

He heard, as he walked back toward his chambers, horses hooves echoing from the bridge, and as he came to the gardens, saw Beleg. His silver head was bent to a little black one. Túrin was hanging back, pulling against Beleg's hold on his small hand. He looked up, face curtained by his hair, shook his head.

He did not want to go back to his mother. The previous evening had ended in tears. Now, he was weeping again, and there was a quiet hopelessness to the desolate sound as if he knew the battle were already lost. Beleg scooped him up. The small face burrowed into his neck.

“Didst thou hear?” Beleg asked. “Thranduil's wife has come. They will be feasting her later, and I wish to see Bainalph.” His eyes dropped to Túrin. _I need to take him to Cell._

Lómion frowned as they walked, thought back to last night. There had been nothing in Cell's demeanour to suggest she had any part in her son's strange behaviour. He had not been thus before they departed for Angmar; this was a new thing. Now, she gathered her son to her, and apologised to them. It was an embarrassing situation, for it seemed the boy was happy only when with Beleg, but he was not Túrin's father, and had no right to the child's affections.

A shadow crossed the bright room. An unwashed stink offended Lómion's nostrils as Cell's father, Lorh lurched away. The woman's mouth thinned as she watched his hurried retreat. There were spots of angry colour on her cheeks, and no love at all in her eyes. It was, Carreg had told them, a duty in Angmar to care for one's parents when they could no longer care for themselves. He would as lief as seen Lorh dead, he admitted without shame, as would Cell; the man was a bully and useless with it, but for all he and his wife had talked of abandoning him on their flight south, ancient traditions could not so easily be overturned. Too, there was no-one else who wanted Lorh and nothing he could do. When Carreg was gone, he hung around his daughter like a foul shadow, knowing she would not refuse him the food and drink that were his by right of paternity and custom.

“Come.” Cell said to her son, almost sharply. “Hush now. Do not squall like a babe. We will have honey-cakes, yes?”

Túrin gave a gulping sob. Beleg touched the child's quivering back gently. He did not speak until they were in his rooms, and then it was with some restraint. His face bore an unaccustomed hardness.  
“The tales they tell of Elves stealing Mortal children...” he said. “I feel as if I am indeed stealing Túrin from his mother.”

“It is no fault of thine,” Lómion returned. “With thee, he feels safe.”

“He is safe with Cell. No-one in Imladris would harm him. He will grow and change.” He did not sound convinced. “Mortal children change so quickly...And we are going to war. When I return the next time – if I do – he may have forgotten me, or at least have outgrown me.”

His clear eyes could break the heart. He did not know the truth. Not yet. Túrin would never forget him; he had bound himself to an oath beyond death because of his love for Beleg. One day he would remember that, and everything of his old life. Even now, child though he was, Túrin knew where his heart rested. Lómion drew Beleg into his arms, held him hard. Unspeaking. Words were bootless.

“I must find Bainalph,” Beleg murmured.

“Of course.” Lómion stepped back. “Wilt thou go to the feast, later?”

“Yes.” A faint, rueful smile tilted his mouth. “I understand my grandson, though I do not condone his behaviour toward Bainalph; I cannot. But I do know that it can shake one's world to fall wholly and completely in love. All else before that seems...not trivial, but as different as war is to training for battle. Practice before the reality. But I was never bound into the kind of marriage Thranduil is. That must be laid at Oropher's feet and, ultimately, at mine. The bond I had with Nellas could not survive what I felt for Túrin. I know Oropher never forgave me for that.”

Lómion asked, with some hesitation: “Thy father...did he become houseless?”

Beleg looked across the gardens, nodded. He turned back. “As did thy father,” he said with deep gentleness. “After a time — a very long time, the Houseless become at one with the Land, _ferthad,_ * the spirits of trees or rock, of spring and hill, of river and trackway. Thou knowest that from Nan Elmoth. We feel them.”

“Yes,” Lómion agreed, swallowing something hard in his throat. He had known Eöl had gone into the Land just as he knew his mother had not.

Beleg settled a hand on his shoulder, squeezed it. “I will see thee later,” he murmured.

After he had gone, Lómion leaned against a pillar. At last he moved, folding away memories and pain. There was something stirring on the edge of his mind, and he was determined to trace it to its ephemeral source, perhaps because it was better than dwelling upon his father.  
His path took him again past Cell's chambers. He saw her sitting on a settle, her son curled into her. He did not think it was she that Túrin feared. He could not imagine a mother hurting her own child, though he was wise enough not to fall into the trap of his own ego. There were many things he did not know.

 

Now, in the great hall, he heard Aredhel say sharply: “Some-one watching them? Who?”

Fanari turned her head.  
“I wondered if it were a guard.”

“Why would they be afraid of a warrior?” Aredhel wondered. “They saw enough on the journey here, and know we mean them no harm.”

“After what they endured, I wonder if they will ever trust any man, Elf or Mortal. With the Queen's arrival, I have not had a chance to pursue it.”

A memory flickered into Lómion's mind. He narrowed his eyes upon it.

“Thou didst not see anything?” Aredhel questioned.

“There was no-one in the gardens when I was there.”

Without a word, Lómion rose and left the hall, cursing himself for obtuseness. Dusk filled Imladris with lilac shadows and the scent of flowers. The healing rooms were set apart in quiet gardens where recovering patients might walk or sit. Not one of the women was out, taking the sweet evening air. The long windows showed blank but for one. Lithil stood, arms folded, brows drawn. A sentry.

It was the twilight time when the eyes can be deceived, but Lómion's never had been; they had always been able to pierce deep shade, a legacy of Nan Elmoth and the father he did not want to remember. But it was sound, not sight that lead him to the Man, bent over himself, labouring.

The bellow of shock was choked off as Lómion caught the back of his tunic and lifted him off his feet. Urine and seed spattered on the grass as he was dragged away.

Hitherto, Lómion had paid Lorh no attention; he skulked about the valley, avoiding the Elves with fearful, white-rolling eyes, a pathetic figure, but when Fanari spoke of some-one watching the women, he had thought of Lorh, scuttling away that afternoon. It was a leap of logic to attribute the women's 'watcher' to him, but whom else was there? It was not obtuseness that had blinded him but the fact that he had never lived among Men before.

Lorh coughed, struggling as Lómion, hand still fisted in his clothes, half-marched, half-dragged him from the valley, over the bridge down to the Ford of Bruinen. The Man barely had time to pull up his breeches. They were seen; not every-one in Imladris had attended the feast, and there were sentries stationed by the river, but no-one questioned. Lómion only halted when he had crossed the ford and flung the man away from him.  
“You spied on the women, and you hurt the boy when we were away in the North,” he stated in Westron. He bore no weapon, but he wanted to kill and could have slain Lorh as easily as cracking an egg. “ _What did you do to him?_ ”

The man shook his head, jaw slack, and scrambled back as Lómion took a step toward him.  
“Carreg is away with the Dúnedain, and your daughter feels it is her duty to look to you. Túrin is not afraid of her, but of _you._ ” Ah, gods, why should he _not_ slay this man? Tremors of white rage ran through him. But it would be murder. Better to drive him forth and let him starve in the wilderness. It would be a slow death, he had no weapons, not even a knife, and no more than he deserved.  
“If I ever see you again,” he said. “I will flay the skin from your body, and _nail it back on._ Begone!”

The last light was going fast. As Lorh shambled into the dark, Lómion could see he had soiled himself. He waited until he could no longer hear the Man's gasping, whimpering progress, and turned away. He paused to rinse his hands in the cold purity of Bruinen. Lorh's stink seemed yet to cling to them. Flicking the water from his fingers, he sent a call into Vanimórë's mind.

OooOooO

“My Lord, there is something we must say.”

Vanimórë sat back, one booted leg crossed over the other. In the garden, a last bird sang into the dusk, then fell silent. Its wings traced a shadow across the balcony as it flew away to roost.

The young Men looked at one another as if gathering courage, then Kashan said respectfully: “We have discussed this together, and we wish to serve you in whatever manner you desire.” He was still young enough to blush.

Vanimórë regarded them in silence. They would not – or could not – accept that he was almost a vagrant now. The thought amused him for a moment. He relished it, having never known true freedom, but they were born and trained to order and the discipline of the army he himself had founded. That was what they needed, what Vanimórë represented. (He would not admit, even for a moment, that some deep-buried part of him was still unsteady without the slavery that had defined him and in a most peculiar way, anchored his life).

He set down the wine he had selected from the cellar. He had spiced and heated it, and it glowed in the lamplight like scorched rubies. Kashan said, “Allow me, my Lord,” and poured it into four goblets with all the grace of a trained page.

“Drink.” Vanimórë watched their faces as they sipped, murmured appreciation. He slid a sigh into his heart.

A sleek black cat poured over the baluster, appeared to consider if they were worthy of its presence, then placed itself on Vanimórë's lap. He ran a finger over its back, and it arched, thrumming.

“But there is another thing, my Lord.” Kashan placed his half-empty cup upon the table, and gripped his hands together. “A thing we must do...”

“Go on.” He knew what it was. He had instilled the ethos into the Mannish legions of Mordor, after all.

“My men. Those still in Carn Dûm. We want to help bring them out.”  
Vaija and Narok were nodding. Kashan hurried on as if to forestall a refusal. “I could not...there was no time, and the sorcerer possessed those he sent after us — ”

“He possessed us also, Vaija and I, my Lord, as we told you,” Narok said. “So that we attacked Ka — Captain Kashan. But those who survived, returned to Carn Dûm — ”

“They are our comrades, my Lord,” Kashan finished.

“It has already been agreed that any who escape will be brought here,” Vanimórë told them. “I do not know if Malantur can hold all their minds constantly, I would think not, but it depends on how much power is being channelled into him. Dost thou understand what is happening here?” He looked at the three tense young faces. They murmured swift assent. “There will not be another raid on Carn Dûm until war breaks. At the least it will be thirteen or fourteen years.”

“My Lord you came into Carn Dûm, or some part of you did. If you spoke to the men in the same way as you spoke to me...”

“I am barred from Carn Dûm. One might say I found a chink to enter, an unguarded door, using the blood of one whom had been there, and he had to go with me.” He raised a hand. “I know what thou didst see, Kashan. I will not take thee back there. I do not even know if I can. Elves walk in different worlds to Men.” Zeva could essay it, but Vanimórë would never even suggest that boy return to rape and horror, and had no intention of taking any of these young ones back, either.

Hopefully, almost pleading, Kashan leaned forward. “I am willing to try, my Lord.”

“And so are we,” Vaija said to him, reaching out to grip his shoulder.

“I would expect nothing less of thee, and I admire thy courage.” Carefully, Vanimóre placed the cat on a cushion and rose. “But even if we succeeded, Malantur would feel what I was doing, and then he might, or rather, probably would, slay or imprison them before they could escape. I could not prevent it, as I cannot physically touch Malantur or any-one else in Carn Dûm. I would only put them in peril. If he knows I want them, what dost thou suppose he would do to prevent me from having them?”

There was a fraught silence. Strained, jaws hardened to resolve, they looked at him as if he must surely have another answer. They believed that there was nothing he could not do. And their trust was not entirely misplaced. In theory at least, nothing _was_ impossible to him. But in _fact,_ the lesson he and Glorfindel were learning was that power could not be lightly used on a fragile world, and sometimes could not be used at all.  
“I want them out also,” he said, and went down before them in a hunter's crouch. “But think: some of them died pursuing thee. There are not many left. I think he will want to keep those he has.” He did not know. Malantur's rotted mind was split asunder, the ancient power of Angband seeping into it, and even that was nothing to those who could now reach him. Angband had been what it was (as had Utumno before it and Barad-dûr after) because of those who dwelt there. They might be gone from the world, but their souls existed still, immutable and terrible, behind a veil so thin Vanimórë could almost see their shadows. He could have stepped through that veil, had he chosen; he had that power now. He did not want to; the thought of it turned his skin to ice.

“It is terr — the conditions are terrible, my Lord,” Kashan's voice was low but impressed with a weight of horror. “Snow and rain as cold — and there are ghosts and wo-worse things.” A shiver fleeted through him, tripped his tongue.

“I know.” He placed a hand over the young man's.

“They will sicken, or go mad, others have...and thirteen years, my Lord? They will not live that long.”

“Others tried to escape before thee,” Vanimórë reminded him.   
  
Kashan's face went still.  
“I had to kill them.” He swallowed, eyes huge and dark. “Those were my orders: Discipline had to be maintained.”

“Of course it did,” he agreed calmly. “Thirteen years, I said, but there will be skirmishes before then, I have no doubt. Malantur will want to test us. Thus we hope to capture any of the Men he sends out. The question is: how likely is he to do that?”

“He may send them out to hunt for game, my Lord,” Narok leaned forward. “You remember, Captain? The orcs were eating more than they brought back.”

“I remember,” Kashan said. “And you...the Elves wish to starve them out.” Hope leapt eagerly into his face. “Autumn comes swiftly up there, but the game is good in the summer and the autumn...”

Vanimórë stood up. “The Greenwood are leaving for their home; they will not be back until the spring. Still, there are others whom would not be averse to making a foray. Leave this with me. Finish the wine,” he added. “It will help thee sleep.” Kashan still suffered from nightmares. “And there is this, too: Those who pursued thee were possessed by Malantur, but after, as themselves, they would remember. They must know, or hope that thou art still alive. They may try to escape, to find thee.”

He included them all in what he hoped was a reassuring smile, then stepped down into the gardens, and stopped at the silent call. His senses, flaring outward, touched fury, a hard-curbed urge to kill. His mind swept through Lómion's, gathered up everything, and he felt the power rise in him like a tide of night.

 _Leave him,_ Dana said. _He is part of it._

 _Is he, now?_ He withdrew himself from the swamp that was Lorh and, delicately, very carefully, sought Túrin. He saw, like the kernel of a nut, the memories of the Man he had been, cushioned by the layers of childhood, and the newer stains, rot upon a smooth-skinned apple. High above, a meteor streaked a white plume across the night sky. The rim of his mind, passing, burst it into flaming shards with a crack like breaking thunder. A child, a child...too young to understand, unable to articulate it, only knowing it was wrong, that it hurt.

 _He will pay for his crimes,_ Dana promised him. _Thou couldst kill him of course, as Lómion could have, and none would blame thee, but this is one of the tipping points, Vanimórë. Hold thy hand._

He strode from the garden, his thoughts seething. He could not see how this would feed into the old tale being replayed here, but there was no other reason for the Mother to warn him. He spat out a curse, took a flight of steps two at a time.  
 _Thou art truly expecting me to let this go?_ he demanded.

_I do not expect it. I merely tell thee that Lorh must leave Imladris. Alive._

_Then tell me this: didst thou_ know?

She did not answer. Again, he was conscious of his inability to comprehend her.  
 _She is not human. Like the Valar, she does not truly understand what it is to live._

_No, but thou art teaching me that, Vanimórë._

_Then if I can do nought,_ again, he flung at her, as the lights of Cell's chambers showed gold in the dimness. _Help me in this other matter: How do I get the Men that remain out of Carn Dûm before those three boys decide it is their duty to go back?_

Túrin was asleep on the settle. At Vanimórë's silent, unannounced entrance, Cell's mouth opened in shock. One moment she stared then backed toward her son, arms spread.  
What he saw in her eyes was knowledge. And guilt.  
She had known.

OooOooO

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Ferthad - spirit of a place (genius loci)  
> Thank you to Allegiance of Elvish on Tumblr for the translation.


	57. ~ Nightfall In Your Wake ~

**Nightfall In Your Wake**

Lorh ran. Fear struck hard like a whip across his back, and he did not hear them. Their arrival was enough to send him tumbling back. They looked down endless legs, two Elves with frosty hair and deep blue eyes that were quite mad.

“What is this?” Elúred wondered aloud down the point of his arrow. “Orc or Man?”

“And running _from_ Imladris?” Elúrin raised delicate brows, then his nose wrinkled. “Faugh. He stinks.”

“And he reeks of fear,” his brother noted. “Running away...what has he done, I wonder?” He smiled. “Shall we just kill him, my love?”

“It would surely leave the world a cleaner place, and he looks guilty to me, of _something_ at least.” They smiled at one another.

The Man scrabbled aside, mouth agape. Their arrows followed him and he froze.

“Guilty,” Elúrin nodded. “Look at his eyes.”

“I would much rather not. Very well, one arrow in each eye?”

If he did not understand their Sindarin, the man could see their intent. He squealed and dodged aside. An arrow plunged into the turf a breath from his feet and he flung himself back, landing hard on his rear.

“Very well.” Elúred had nocked another arrow. “We can find out _what_ he is guilty of after.”

“Hold.”

The voice came out of nowhere, as did the speaker. The twins faces turned, surprise melting into warmth.  
“Vanimórë.” They reached toward him, the Man more than half-forgotten.

“I am afraid thou canst not kill him. Dana has proclaimed that he is part of this tale, and must go to life or death alone.”

Their lips formed moues of disappointment.  
”Mother is no fun sometimes,” Elúrin remarked. His expression changed, mercurial, as he poked a toe toward the grovelling Mortal. “But by that, he _is_ guilty of something, yes?”

“Never mind,” Vanimórë laid a hand on each of their shoulders. “Leave him. He is going to his death.”

Far in the north, the clouds piled like a prophecy over dark Carn Dûm.

OooOooO

Returning to the hall, Lómion saw that some of the guests had left their seats to talk to friends, while others sat back, spoke over their wine-cups. For no reason that he could think of, as he passed Fanari he said, mind-to-mind: _I discovered whom was watching the women, and more. He is gone. Perhaps thou wilt tell them._

Her back stiffened.  
_Who?_ By her tone he knew she had, in less than a heartbeat, considered and followed every possible action he might have taken, and moreover, wondered if he had killed the offender.

_The creature that calls himself Cell's father._

Fanari rose, passed down the table to her son, where she exchanged a few words with him and Gil-galad then, quite casually, returned the way she had come and paused beside Lómion as if by chance.  
_I have not seen this Man._ She drew a little back into the shadows.

 _Then thou art fortunate. I knew somewhat was amiss. Túrin has been frightened when he has to go back to his mother – or rather, not to her, but to his chambers. Her husband, Carreg is away with the Dúnedain, and her father...He is offal. When thou didst speak of some-one watching the Angmar women, I wondered, for whom else could it be? The man, Lorh, he..._ slithers. _He fears us and yet he spies and skulks. I caught him in the gardens of the healing rooms. He was watching, pleasuring himself._

Fanari's eyes went flat.  
_What didst thou do with him?_

_I...escorted him to the Bruinen and told him I would kill him if I saw him again._

_Ah._ He thought she might be disappointed. Her eyes flicked to Elladan and Elrohir.  
_Thou wilt have to tell them._

 _Later,_ he replied. _And not here. As matters stand he did not harm the women, but he might have, and he_ has _hurt or frightened Túrin in some way. We should have guessed. Beleg said no-one here would harm him, and insofar as that goes it is true, at least no Elf would._

 _I have heard of such things._ She clasped her arms. _What was he...was he_ beating _beating the child?_

_Only his mother would know that, or the creature himself. And he would not tell me._

_I do not suppose he would. And thou didst simply banish him?_ She sounded outraged, as if she could not believe he had not done worse.

 _They say starvation is a cruel enough death._ His hands clenched as though around Lorh's scrawny throat. _I wanted to kill him, believe me._

_I do._

_If Cell knew,_ he said. _How could she permit it?_

 _I do not know,_ Fanari replied. _Ask Vanimórë. He will be able to find out._

He nodded, returned to his table and leaned to speak to Beleg.  
_We need to talk._

The beautiful eyes met his, narrowed at something they saw there. Beleg inclined his head.

OooOooO

They convened in Beleg's chambers. Vanimórë entered a few moments after. His face was ice, but under it lay something white-hot and deadly.

He told them, his voice coming from an Age away, as if trying to distance himself from something unbearable.

With Ness' marriage, Carreg had begun to journey to stay with him in the Dúnedain settlement. He was not a man to sit idle, and had found a new purpose in life. Cell had nothing to do but visit the refugee women. Lorh had offered to keep an eye on Túrin and she felt there was no-one else she could ask.

“There are ways and ways to abuse.” Vanimórë looked like some god of dark and vengeful death. “He did not beat Túrin, did not rape him.” His eyes were dark jewels that held nothing human. Then a fleeting expression, swift as a melting snowflake crossed his face. “As well thou didst not know,” he said to Lómion. “For thou wouldst indeed have killed him.”

“What?” whispered Beleg. “What did he do?” His face had gone stark.

Vanimórë said, flames running through his voice: “He fondled the child, touched him, put the boys hands on him, penetrated him with his finger, spilled himself before him. Túrin is too young to understand. We can hope he does not remember.”

“I will find him and kill him.” Beleg's looked like something carved of icy wind and water, and wholly lethal.

“I will come with thee,” Lómion said.

“The Mother says he is not to be killed.” Vanimórë dropped the words as if they were unclean.

“I do not care,” Beleg stated. “Did Cell _know_?”

“Yes. It was not uncommon among them, parents believing that as they had created their children, they had the right to use them.” A mirthless smile fleeted across his mouth.

Beleg ran his hands down his face. “I thought her a good woman.” His voice came strained.

“The child cannot stay with her.” Lómion hissed.

“She wishes to take him from Imladris, to make a home with her husband in the Dúnedain village.” Vanimórë folded his arms. “She has wanted to for some time, but Carreg told her she and the boy were safer, here.”

“And she _knew_?” Beleg demanded.

“It happened to her when she was a child, in fact until Carreg, who desired to wed her, made it plain to Lorh it must stop.” He strode to the balcony, looked along it toward Cell's room where the light burned. “Sometimes, I have seen that people who are used thus carry the abuse into the next generation. Cell did not, but neither did she prevent it” He turned back.

“Why not? How could any mother allow it? And Carreg? Did he know?” Beleg's voice had gone taut.

Vanimórë pinched the bridge of his nose as if his head pained him. “No. Carreg grew restless here, and is more at home with the Dúnedain. The people of Angmar have been almost destroyed. They came here: a safe haven, but a strange one. Men cannot live among Elves or rather, very few of them can. So they reach back to the known and familiar. We all do, I think.”

“But what in the _Hells_ was in Cell's mind, _knowing_ her son was being...touched in that way, yet not putting a stop to it?” Beleg curled his hand about one of the slender pillars, knuckles white. “We were not here, but she could have told any-one in Imladris and they would have prevented it, sent the Man away.” Or more.

Vanimórë shook his head, exhaled. “What is in the mind of any-one who colludes or at the least overlooks such abuse?” he said. “She fears Carreg has taken a lover, with him so often away. Her mind was more upon him than her child. And...Túrin has grown too fond of thee, Beleg. The old tales of Elves stealing Mortal children have crept back to disturb her. She would have dismissed them once, but living here she has become more superstitious. If she was content at the beginning, she is not now.”

Beleg stared at him. “I have know guilt that the child so favours my company.”

“But thou doth love him,” Vanimórë said gently.

“I do. But there is ever grief when Elves and Mortals grow too close, for them and for us both.” His face closed. “But I am concerned for his safety. He is a _child_. I should have known something was wrong, and even then it would be too late.”

Lómion whirled on his heel, wanting to go to Cell, to demand answers where there could be none. Vanimórë's voice stopped him. He turned slowly back.

“I said she should go, but that she would not take Túrin.” The words were the end of an argument.

To take a child from their parents was unheard of among any kindred of the Elves.

“Thinks't thou I care?” Vanimórë read their minds. “I have seen this before when I ruled in the South. In the end it does not matter that it is custom or that a parent did not know it, or feared for themselves, were too busy. None of that matters. They are all excuses. At the heart is the fact that a child was misused. Cell knew it need not happen in Imladris. She knew she had hated being abused by Lorh. But she allowed it. I will tell Carreg myself.”

There was no mistaking the relief in Beleg's face.  
“And the Man, Lorh?”

“No Dúnedian settlement will take him in. I am going to speak with Elladan and Elrohir. Messages will go out. We may not be able to kill him, but he will be offered no safe harbour.”

“How is Túrin now?” Lómion asked. “Should we not keep watch?”

“We will,” Vanimórë agreed. “Until Carreg comes.” His voice had been calm throughout the conversation, but he was not calm at all, Lómion saw. He was furious. This went deep with him. Elgalad had said Vanimórë had suffered abuse himself. No more than that, and more than enough when one considered where he had dwelt, whom he had served. Excuses would not soften him; he would judge, and harshly. He looked like a man sick of his own impotence, but in this matter he could do something, and would.

“Thou canst not feel it, perhaps,” he murmured. “The _power_ here. Reborn souls carry it like a nimbus around them, strange and beautiful. Mortals cannot comprehend it, and so back away from it or call it magic. Dost thou not know? They come to hate us, most of them. They do not see what we are, only how we appear.”

“Túrin...” Beleg stopped, took a breath. “He did not hate, but perhaps he died too young.”

“No.” Vanimórë met his eyes, and there was compassion, deep as the ocean, in his own. “There are some, I believe who _should_ have been born Elves, and he was one of them.” He snapped the thread of sorrow that had settled between them all. “I must see Elladan and Elrohir. Watch, from a distance, until I return.”

OooOooO

The meal had ended. Elgalad leaving with Bainalph. Some lamps still burned, but the valley was quiet. Vanimórë had looked in on the sleeping Uruk-hai and young soldiers. In his chambers he bathed, drew on clean breeches and stretched upon the bed. He was alone for once with Elgalad gone and Coldagnir moving among the stars as once he had before he had fallen into the depths of Utumno.

He was expecting her to come. She entered as if she had every right, and entirely naked. This night her form was different, and very like that of the Angmar women, which was no surprise.

Dana had told him to let Túrin go with his mother to settle with the Dúnadan. Why? he had asked, and been answered by a mental shrug. Now she came herself to continue the argument.

There had certainly been times when they disagreed before, but it always ended the same way. Dana, epitome of female power, knew what to do to sway him to her way of thinking.  
Not this time.

“The boy cannot be raised by Elves from such a young age.” She sat down on the bed. “It will be far worse for him as he grows and ages, seeing those he loves unchanging. He needs memories of his own people, as Túrin did.”

“Does he?” Vanimórë did not feel like compromising. “Why? His soul will remember in time, and he will love Beleg, if the abuse he has undergone does not damage him.” It was impossible to tell. Perhaps he was too young to remember it, but it was equally possible it might lie in the depths of his mind, something foul he could not overcome.

Her eyes slid away.  
“I do not know if that was not meant to happen. Didst thou know that in his first life, Túrin felt it was unmanly to lie with Beleg?”

“Yes, I did know that. So thou art saying his abuse is simply part of that pattern?” Túrin had woven his own oath that bound him to this path, but Vanimórë would be damned before he accepted that harm done to an innocent was necessary.

“Maybe. Gods meddle with fate at their peril. Túrin should be with his mother a while longer.”

“She was complicit in his abuse. No, Dana. I am not engaging in an argument about this, not when a child's safety is at stake.” He flung himself to his feet. “Damn fate to the Hells and beyond.”

She rose, ran a finger down his arm, across his stomach.  
“Cell loves her child.” She wove persuasion softly into her tone. “Once she is gone from here, the power that has seeped into her mind will fade. You are right about that. It is too potent, and Mortals cannot live within its sphere of influence. And no-one should take a child from their mother.”

“I have done it before.” And she knew it. There had been orphanages in Sud Sicanna. If news ever came to him of a child misused (which was often enough) they were taken from their families and need have no further contact with their parents save under supervision. “Thou tell me then: What _was_ in Cell's mind besides preoccupation with her absent husband, the desire to have her son _marked_ in some way as Mortal and of Angmar, the acceptance of the abuse. She endured it, and so could her son, even though she herself _loathed_ it and her father? Am I missing something? Is there something I am too stupid to comprehend? And do not lay it at the feet of the Elves. Cell is not that weak minded.”

“You kick against the pricks,” Dana shook her head. “Have you not learned that sometimes you can do nothing?”

He stared into her eyes. “But I _can_ do something.”

“Your anger blinds you. Cell is not a bad mother— ”

“I do not trust her with him,” he snapped. “Not now. Why are we even arguing about this?”

“Dear boy...” She ran a fingernail down his groin, a smile lilting on her mouth. “Cell is no more evil than you.”

“I know exactly what I am, Dana. But I have never simply _allowed_ such foulness to happen without so much as a murmur of protest.” He was unresponsive under her touch. She glanced up, and her shape shimmered into her own form, and then, when he still did not respond, into other women.  
“My _dear_ boy—”

“I am not _thine._ ” He moved away. “My mother died screaming in Tol-in-Gaurhoth. Thou art not she.”

“I am all women, Vanimórë.”

“Thou art not all women,” he flashed. “Thou canst not be, without knowing what it is to be without choice. Thou canst not strip thyself of power to know helplessness. Thou didst always have that, even when Melkor destroyed thee thou wert not truly helpless. It was thy choice—”

“I embraced my fate,” she interrupted him. “I was always destined to be destroyed so that I would become one with the Earth. Had I not I would merely be another lost god. Melkor was more powerful then. You did not know him before he raped the Earth. No-one could stand against him. He wanted me to join him, and I would not. His answer was to utterly destroy me.”

His eyes narrowed. “Yes. I saw. Thou didst give me visions of it. But it was still thy choice, A terrible one, yes. But a choice.”

“I serve under no Power,” she said. “Melkor and I were too unalike. And so I did what I had to do, and slept and dreamed. And waited. You were always destined to be the one who woke me from my long sleep. I saw you long before the Unbegotten opened their eyes to the stars, Vanimórë.”

He did not like to remember it, that night in the temple in Sud Sicanna, the incense smoke, the chanting of the women, himself naked and bound (as he had lain before Melkor and Sauron both) as they lowered themselves onto him one after another, screaming as they came to orgasm. There was no desire in him, only the building power that milked him again and again. He used the skills patiently learned to pleasure them and saw the hate in their eyes, all of them and Dana not the least. To the women, he was the men whom had raped them, to Dana, he was Melkor. Except he was not. He was himself, Vanimórë. Dana's smile had been predatory when she came to him, and her coming was an earthquake he felt through his bones. After, he felt sucked hollow, racked with pain and, for a long time there was no stir of lust in his body. The Mother had gorged on him.

He did not speak of it to any-one. Who would have understood? The flavour of shame was bitter on his tongue. He used the experience, as he used everything that happened to him, to deepen his understanding. This was how it felt to be a woman used for sex, but he had always been used, and already understood. He had not needed that lesson. It was a night of rape, no more, no less, and he knew such nights too well.

He shut the night away into that place within where rape and pain and humiliation strained at the walls of the prison he had built for them, and lived with it because he did not know what else to do.

“I marked you as mine.” It was a dulcet whisper that brought rage vomiting up.  
“Melkor and Sauron were before thee.” He raised his hands in a pushing-away gesture. “I will not be thine, nor theirs. I was reborn in Fos Almir. I _will not belong to any-one._ ” Not again.

“You became what you were born to be,” she told him. “You were a hidden god, a god-in-waiting. So secret, even Melkor never foresaw you, but then he could see little beyond his own path and his ruinous desires. But neither did your own father see it. Only Eru could hide you so well. But some threads are not so easily snapped. Never forget that. And I am not only speaking of me.”

He wanted to walk away from her, from Imladris, the north, lose himself in the south of the world, taste his freedom for centuries. And knew he could not. He swallowed futility like rancid wine.

“We are all of us bound,” Dana said softly. “You know it.”

Was he, he wondered?

“Now, in the matter of Cell.” Her voice was still gentle, beguiling. “Any-one could have made this mistake.”

“No.” He was glad to have another focus for his anger. “Thou wouldst tell me Túrin's abuse is fate, have a bearing on what he becomes—”

“Your own abuse plays a great part in what _you_ have become.”

Hs breath burst from his lungs. “ _Did it_? And so it was acceptable, I suppose?” Her face was impassive as a mask of jet. “I do not know what thou art,” he said slowly. “But I do not think that thou, or the Valar will ever know what it is to be _human_ , to truly care, to truly _grieve._ Thou wouldst say thou canst not help, but I say thou _wilt not_ , because for all thy powers it just takes too much damned time and effort, does it not?”

Her mouth went thin. “You understand nothing, godling. But you will learn. We cannot — _I_ cannot — be forever meddling.”

“I am learning,” he said grimly. “All the time.”

“Not enough.” Her tone plummeted into scorn. “You have not learned enough. This is a foolish argument. You will allow Cell to keep her child because I ask it. She falls under my purview, as you know.”

“Under thy purview? So, goddess, answer me this: why didst thou not step in when she was used by her father? Thou must have known that the grave of Angband leaked poison. Didst thou ever go there?”

“I cannot help them all,” she snapped. “Neither can you.”

“But I am damned well going to _try_ ,” he shot back. “Hells, thine intervention would not break the mountains and raise the seas. It is so _little_ and would cost thee nothing. Why dost thou look away save when it suits thee?”

“Dear boy,” she sighed. “Sometimes I enjoy disputing with you, but now it becomes wearisome.”

“Well, forgive me that I will not dance to thy tune in this matter!”

She laughed. Her hand reached toward his sex again and she was smiling, smiling as if this were a boy's temper tantrum that would soon blow itself out. It was familiar, and though he had submitted to her blandishments many times, he felt nothing now.  
“No. Thou hast gone thy length. I am sick of thee, of the Valar, of atrocities swept away as _fated_ , as _mistakes_. I wonder, I truly do, if this is a game to thee, that thou art just waiting until the end, until Melkor returns, to resume thy battle with him. Am I a toy thou didst enjoy playing with while waiting, a living game-piece in an Agelong game of _Tar_? Are we all playthings to thee, I wonder?”

She threw back her head and laughed.

“Amusing, is it? So Cell is not a bad mother. Shall I tell thee my definition of a _good_ mother? One who hears when her children cry out to her, who would take their pain from them, would die for them. Thou art called the Mother. Well, where wert thou when I was summoned back to Barad-dûr, _mother_? Where was Cell when Túrin wept and cried out to her. _Where were either of thee_?”

The laughter died as if strangled.  
”You have not the faintest notion of whom — what — you are, who I am, or your part in the world.” Ice coated her words. He saw roused power and anger in her eyes and something else, timeless, incomprehensible. It reminded him shockingly of Melkor. Sauron, he could, in some way, understand but Melkor had been beyond him. There had been nothing in the Dark God's mind that his own could grasp.

“You — and Glorfindel — are a thing that has not happened before.” She stood back from him. “You were not born gods, you attained godhood through an apotheosis. You have no experience, and _you_ especially need to know balance. The Dark has known you too long and too well. Nightfall trails in your wake. I can advise you, if you will heed me.”

He had winced at her words, but now he said, “So I am to obey thee because thou art are a goddess? But dost thou not see, I can _never_ be what thou art precisely because I was _not_ born with power. I cannot understand thee, and thou wilt never understand me. What is this? Art thou testing me? Is this what this is about, my obedience to thee? I have told thee: I am not thine.”

“So you say, godling. The young are good at self-delusion.”

“Oh, no. Self-delusion is one of the many things I could never afford,” he said dryly. “Now leave me.”

“Fool,” she said. Her shape shifted becoming, though he could not imagine why, a thin old woman, long hair straggling over her face* before she vanished swift as a snuffed candle. He pressed the heel of his hands into his eyes. He had become used to Dana, her arbitrariness, the half-teasing games, her casual, carnal use of him. Perhaps that was what she had wanted: for him to never ask questions. Or never presume to question? He lay back down, flung one forearm across his face. He had never made the mistake of attributing her with _goodness_. She was too unpredictable, but some of her interventions were merciful. He had, for a long time, forced himself to overlook the fact that she could also stand and watch, regard cruelty and injustice as inevitable, part of the warp and weft of life, or as fate. Her kindnesses now seemed whimsical, random as a child choosing a sweetmeat.

What was she, really? And what true game was buried at the heart of them all, or had he guessed true that she waited for Melkor's return? With a curse, he rolled to his feet, dragged on his tunic. He did not know what she might do now, anything or nothing.

He walked to the balcony. The lights were quenched now, in Cell's rooms. He looked up at the net of stars that wove over the valley. One of them was moving, a meteor streaking across the sky, glowing brighter and brighter, and falling, it seemed, upon Imladris.

He was moving before the thought _Coldagnir_ entered his mind. The approaching light grew until the darkness was seared into red and gold. There was a boom and clap of air that rolled around the encircling cliffs as Coldagnir plummeted into the valley. He landed, wings of flame upraised, almost at Vanimórë's feet who felt the wash of heat that the Balrog drew into himself before the dry grass could catch alight.

He was holding a man in his arms. Vanimórë was reminded of how he had brought Zeva out of Carn Dûm.

The man was unconscious. He looked like an Elf, or almost, hair the colour of honey fell in untended swathes to the ground. His clothes were simple, a blue tunic stitched with stars, black breeches and boots. But it was none of these things that drew the eye. The garden coruscated with light, like the sun flashing from a hoard of gems. But this was just one gem, bound above his brow.

It was not a Silmaril — Vanimórë had held one in his hand, after all — but had clearly been made to copy one. On impulse, he stretched out his hand and placed it over the jewel. It surged under his skin and he heard the Powers, those who had been Powers, in Valinor cry out, and strike. Heat threatened to burn to the bone. He set his teeth and yanked the gem from its settings, closed his hand into a fist. With a grating crunch, fragments fell from his fingers, sparking, then dying as the light went out.

People were running to the garden, voices crying questions.  
Coldagnir said, “I found him up there; a vessel following the course of a planet. He was a prisoner. I think it is the one you call...”

“Eärendil,” Vanimórë said starkly. “Yes.”

OooOooO

 


	58. ~ On The Littoral Of Darkness ~

  


  
**~ On The Littoral Of Darkness ~**

 

~ “A cup of wine?” Gil-galad inquired, slipping an arm through Tindómion's. “We _do_ have things to discuss.”

The meal had broken up, the guests drifting away to their rooms.

Tindómion gazed at the star-clear face in the dimness.  
“Of course.”

They walked as they had walked in Lindon, before it became too dangerous, before gossip trod on their heels like a wolf, arm in arm, hip to hip. Tindómion felt every touch like the lick of flame, as if his flesh were raw under his clothes. He halted at the top of the steps leading to his chambers, swung to face Gil-galad.

“What thou didst say to me about Annatar,” he began.

“Thou didst truly not remember?” Gil-galad's eyes searched his face like lamps. “Then I am sorry, but thou didst ask why I went to battle Sauron alone when yes, I admit that it was foolish.”

“Foolish,” Tindómiom repeated. His voice almost broke. One word to describe the feeling that _he_ was responsible for Gil-galad's death. He knew, logically that it was not true, that Gil-galad had been meant to die as all the Noldorin kings before him. The Valar did not mean him to escape the Doom. He had been used, perhaps even Sauron (ironically) had been used to bring that to pass.

“I remember now. And it was shown to thee in the Everlasting Dark.”

“Yes.” Gil-galad turned to face him, breast to breast.

Tindómion would never have known, the memory folded tight in its dream-within-a-dream. Rage at being so manipulated jetted up in him, and a yearning that split his heart. He had been made to dream of himself with Gil-galad. If only —  
  
“It was like _this._ ” Gil-galad pushed him up against the wall that bounded the path, slammed his hands down each side of Tindómion's body.  
“I wanted to take thee there and then, so _badly._ I let thee go. That was a mistake. I let thee go to Ost-in-Edhil. I do not care about Annatar, but that we could not, for thousands of years, give ourselves the same freedom as _he_ had. Strange is it not, to envy the freedom of the Enemy? Only that once. And once was enough to damn us. If only we had known.” He pressed closer, his breath fragrant on Tindómion's lips. His sex was hard, blazing hot through his breeches. He thrust against Tindómion, dragged a groan from deep inside.  
“I want to see thee fall apart for me, my beautiful Fëanorion.”

Tindómion's heart was a star, too large, too hot for the cage of his ribs. His words came out in deep and unsteady: “I fell apart every time thou didst look at me.” Then, as Gil-galad stared at him, he shifted, caught Gil-galad by the arms and spun him, so that now he rested against the wall, and they were smiling, breaths shuddering, then gasping for air as they clashed, kissing, straining against one another, hands fisting muscle, cloth, hair. Silent words bled from mind to mind, inarticulate, a flood of hunger and fire.

Tindómion did not know how they made the small distance to his chambers, well nigh fighting one another, entangled like drunken Men. It was only as he raised his head for a slice of air that he saw the Elf, or rather, the glass-white hair, and remembered that the stranger from the previous evening had said he would send some-one to bring him. The air he had taken went out of him on a sharp exhalation. He froze for a moment, and Gil-galad, still gripping him turned his head.

The man melted away into the dark.

“Did I spoil something?” Gil-galad demanded.

“What? No.” He had not even been sure anything would happen. Throughout the feast, his eyes had sought out any-one with that colour hair, that height that build, and seen no-one who matched.

“Then is this some kind of game?”

“No.” And, with a flare of anger: “Thou art the one who plays those games, not I.” Vórimóro was not here, but — “ _“There are more people in the world than he,_ ” Gil-galad had said as they travelled to Finrod's land.

Tindómion had rarely felt jealousy. In Lindon the Laws wrapped them too tight and he had known, anyhow, that _he_ was the favoured one, but in this new existence jealousy had become a furnace in him. He had deliberately stopped himself from thinking of Gil-galad with Vórimóro. It was dangerous to fan those flames.

“This was no game.”  
  
Jealousy ran both ways, it seemed, unless perhaps another Finwëion were involved. Or did that only add fuel to the fire?

Gil-galad took Tindómion's feet out from under him with one practised move, and they fell to the grass. More than half-fighting in truth now, they struggled and rolled, bruising the fragrant greensward in what became a battle to get as close as possible, to feel the friction of their sex grinding into the other. They panted, swore, kissed past bared teeth, loosing their leggings in the tussle so that their burning-hot flesh could come together, grinding.

And then, they could not stop. Their hair unravelled from its braids, fell across them in clouds. Gil-galad's flesh scalded as Tindómion touched every part of it he could, and then locked about his slim hips to thrust harder against him. Fragments of memory flared across his mind like burning leaves. _Nost-na-Lothion._ , that wine with bitterness in its dregs. Fire, wind, music, passion, except the word could not encompass that night. He was always, _always_ ravenous for Gil-galad. He wanted to take him as he had Bainalph, to the _Anguish_ , to scorch away the horror of the Void he saw in the star-blue eyes. But now there was no time, the hunger was too fierce, and it inflamed the both of them. Tindómion locked one leg about Gil-galad's flank and they strove and shuddered together. Pleasure twisted into a need that became agony. It was savage, it was beautiful, and oh, so _needed._ When Tindómion spent, the racking spasms emptied him to floating starlight.

Gil-galad's shaking breaths misted against his throat. He drew away slowly, relaxed into the grass. His eyes were radiant.  
“I do not believe thou doth truly feel that thou art not enough for me,” he said after a while, and lifted himself on one arm. “Eru! Look at thee. I remember every eye on thee in Lindon, envious, lustful, hating thee as my mother's followers did. Thou couldst draw the eye like a magnet, and do so still.”

Tindómion raised himself. He had learned to ignore the stares directed at him. At first, it was self-defence against his status as a bastard and a Fëanorion. Later, he had grown not to care. He did, though, see and note the eyes that followed the High King. He laughed inwardly. Both of them so intent upon the other.  
“Gil,” he said. “I never want to lose _this_ ” This fierce desperation, this passion that ravished his body and soul. He did not want it to be sated. Ever.

“We will never lose this.” The sleek brows dipped as his eyes travelled over Tindómion's face. “Thou art making me doubt myself,” he said with a strange laugh.

“Oh, hells—”

“I believed it was thou who doubted, foolish as it seemed, but now I wonder.”

They were both suddenly on their feet.  
  
“I do not understand thee. Perhaps I would have to live without thee as thou didst live an Age without me to know what is happening in thy mind. Think'st thou it was only the knowledge we did wrong that kept our fires burning?” He walked to the fountain, his hair shimmering behind him in raven wings. He dipped into the water, splashing himself, saying over his shoulder: “Well, go, find the lover whom is no doubt waiting for thee. Give him what thou wilt not give me. Perhaps thou wilt find the love that never burns out with them. I believed I had found it.”  
  
“Stop it,” Tindómion said savagely, wrenching him round. Gil-galad pressed against him.

“Is memory all thou doth want?” he hissed. “Is it enough for thee, because it is damned well not enough for me! But if I am to be relegated to a memory of what _might have been,_ so be it. Do not expect me to wait.”

“Thou didst not wait!”

Gil-galad pulled away, fastened his breeches.  
“I waited too long in my first life. I thought we both did.” He strode away.  
Tindómion washed the seed from his skin, snapped the belt closed, then with a curse went after him, only for them to almost collide as Gil-galad turned the corner from the stairs.  
  
“I am more than memory.” He gripped Tindómion's arms and they stared at one another as a red light lit the sky and grew, illuminating their faces, throwing long shadows across the lawn. They looked up to see the firebolt that was Coldagnir with great wings flaring out like a stooping hawk. The air cracked. He came down not far away, and the light went out.

  
Vanimórë and Coldagnir knelt beside a figure stretched upon the grass. Tindómion had never seen the man before though there was something familiar in the shape of his face. He was, if not asleep, quite unconscious. There was a strange stench in the air, like burned glass and, as he moved closer, hard fragments ground under his boots.

Voices were raised, others coming into the garden: Elladan and Elrohir, Lómion, Beleg, Elgalad beside Bainalph, Fanari and Aredhel, Thranduil, Daeron, Elúred and Elúrin. The young Men of Mordor crowded together not far away, he even saw the blond _Uruk_ , staring.

“ _Eru._ ” It was Lómion. “Is that... _Eärendil?_ ”

“Yes,” Fanari affirmed in an odd voice. “It is.”

A silence like thunder spread over the garden. Many looked up at the sky. For more than two Ages Eärendil had sailed the heavens, a sign of hope for Middle-earth. Or so it had been said.

“Tell us,” Elladan said, straight to Coldagnir. He and Elrohir crossed the grass side by side and went down beside the motionless Eärendil.

“I found him,” Coldagnir said. His hair moved like flames, the beautiful face shone like a white opal. “I used to move among the stars before I came down to Arda. There is a planet up there, closer to the Sun than Arda. It is very bright from here. And I saw another light, following the same course as the planet. There was a vessel, a ship. Some of its timbers were scorched and there were claw marks upon it. Ancalagon. I was there. I... And he was standing at the wheel, his hands upon it, with a jewel upon his brow. He was like this, as thou seest him.”

“ _Not_ the Silmaril,” Vanimórë said dryly and looked up as some-one new walked into their midst: Glorfindel, shining gold with fury. “Thou didst know.”

“I have been preoccupied, as indeed we all have, but Finrod told me of something he had heard in Valinor. We should have guessed that once the Valar had a Silmaril in their possession they would never relinquish it to any-one.”

“Fëanor knows, I am sure,” Gil-galad said, and Glorfindel looked at him with a nod.  
“Yes. He knew. But the Silmaril do not sit inside his heart as once they did. He will claim them. One day.”

“What did they do to Eärendil?” Fanari demanded, like a knife.

“They fashioned a bright jewel and put him out there, to sail in the shadow of a planet that looks brilliant to our eyes, and they left him there.” Glorfindel's voice carried an oncoming storm.  
  
“There is no air between the planets,” Coldagnir spoke. “or in the deeps of the universe. A human would suffocate. But there was a bubble of air about the ship. It would have to be renewed or he would use it up. The Valar?” He raised a brow, and Glorfindel nodded.  
“Manwë.”  
  
“It is as if he is in a coma.” Elladan raised his head. “Alive, but...”

“ _All this time_?” Fanari choked. “All these years...?”

They raised him between them, carrying him, talking, but softly, behind him. The twins took him to their own rooms. Tindómion flung around, strode straight to where Glorfindel stood with Vanimórë.  
“When,” he shot at them both. “are the Valar going to pay for their crimes?”

Glorfindel vanished with a crack of displaced air. Vanimórë cursed and followed. Tindómion wanted to ride the shadow of their power, take sword and fury into the false, bleached sanctity of Valinor. Gil-galad's hand came down on his shoulder.  
“One day,” he promised. “And we will battle them as we battled in Eregion and the Morannon and in Mordor, and this time _we will win._

OooOooO

The Pelori thrust its sheer white fangs below them as they hung on the air. Tirion was a pale spark, and Aman unrolled toward the dark of the Outer Sea. Taniquetil was buried in cloud.  
Glorfindel burned like a second sun, whirling as Vanimórë seized his arm.  
“Thou knowest Fëanor will return and bring them to account,” he said, “They are not as strong as us, but those who follow Manwë are vicious-minded thugs. There are Elves in Valinor still, and on Tol Eressëa.” He did not say Finarfin's name, but it was there, a ghost on his tongue.

Glorfindel stared at him from eyes that burned blue from rim to rim. Then: “I know. But I knew him, Eärendil. _Hells,_ Vanimórë, I cannot let this pass!”

Vanimórë's own rage burned like a destroyed star. Again, he was impotent, unable to do anything. The Mother's smile, knowing, condescending, mocked him.  
“No,” he agreed. “I do not think we should let it pass entirely.”  
  
They came down like fire, gold and black flames on the threshold of Ilmarin, that ice-carving of bone and despite, haunted by the memory of despotism. The sky was grey and here, so high above the world, snow sluiced down onto what had been, once, immaculate gardens.

They blustered out, those three whom had once thought they ruled the world and fate. For a moment, Vanimórë saw them as they once had been, perfect of face and form but with eyes as lifeless as inlay, then a shift of perception and Manwë withered like an old man, Varda's thin white hair dripped ice, Námo's face was an insect-skull with jaw unhinging to eat the souls he no longer had dominion over. Their hate was a palpable thing, like a miasma of disease from uncovered graves.

Glorfindel's blow sent Námo skidding back into the cold shadows of Ilmarin. He picked up Manwë by the scruff of his neck.  
“I am just here to tell thee that I _am_ watching thee.” Snow melted where he stood. Manwë struggled, hissing.

Varda shrieked like a crow, summoning what power she still possessed, sending the ice between the stars to freeze them. Vanimórë flicked a thought and the threat died like a weary breeze. She hurled herself at him, fingers stabbing. He caught one arm, swung her around and pushed her so that she stumbled away, falling to her knees on the wet ground. She raised her head, mouth hissing curses that might have come straight from a city's stews. Manwë cursed them to the Void. Glorfindel threw him away like a sack of old bones. His mouth curled in disgust.  
“I am watching all of thee,” he said in a voice of thunder. The storm broke, whitening the blizzard. “Do not think I cannot unmake thee if I choose to. At least there will not be enough of thee to gather the smallest rag of form. Know that if thou doth raise a hand against any in Aman, we _will_ punish thee.”

Vanimórë's mouth twitched at his inclusion in the threat, but his eyes saw to the back of Manwë's, who knew well enough why he had visited Finwë. The words bubbled on the Vala's tongue. Vanimórë clamped down a mind-vise, and Manwë's eyes bulged in shock. There was a terrible temptation to increase the pressure until the bitter mind gouted the last of its sanity and fell in on itself. With the utmost reluctance, and knowing he had to, Vanimórë controlled the impulse, reached for Varda and Námo, the latter scrambling to his feet, mantis bones clothed in flesh. The Valar had never been human; now they were physically becoming the sum of their thoughts.  
  
Varda's hands went to her throat. Her eyes were black as coal in a pit. Then she began to laugh, gathering herself to her feet.  
“Thou,” she hissed. “Everything will be taken from thee in the end. Thy sister, thy mother, they do not even remember thee, _whore._ And when the blond slut has died, no-one will! Eru uses thee; art thou too stupid to comprehend?” She pointed at him as if pronouncing a doom. “Looking for _love_ all thy life, but thou _knowest_ thou hast never deserved it, and will never have it. Thy beloved Elgalad feels only gratitude toward thee and is bound by a sense of duty. He had nothing else, even as thy sister did not.”

“ _Shut thy putrid mouth, thou lying_ bitch!” Glorfindel's voice slammed through the storm. His hand clenched about Vanimórë's arm. Golden light lashed out in a wall that drove the Valar back. The marble steps split, a column broke with a ringing snap. Vanimórë felt himself lifted aloft until once again, Taniquetil was lost under clouds that now lashed and raged with thunder and shattering claws of lightning.

“Thou wilt not listen to that creature,” Glorfindel commanded. “Thou wilt not give her words credence. She is mad and long ago lost all knowledge of the truth.”

Vanimórë smiled. “I do not,” he said lightly.

OooOooO

Star-kinder they called her; she whom could see only Light, unable to accept that darkness was necessary, an essential part of the universe. Varda and Melkor had warred because the latter _did_ comprehend that darkness had its role; Light was sucked in to black holes, unable to escape the titanic gravity. She hated that. The Ainur could become too entrenched, too narrow in their focus.

There had been so much _power_ then, before they took on form. All the Ainur who passed from the Timeless Halls gave up something of it, left part of their essence behind.

He could be patient. He had to be. There was no day or night nor seasons to mark time passing, but his ceaseless observations provided a frame of reference that was both an anchor and ongoing torture because of that very fact. He understood Vanimórë's sense of impotence because here, he could do nothing save think, plan. He could not engage with that venomous bitch and punish her. But he would.

 _Thou hast endured worse,_ he told his son.

Vanimórë could not consciously feel the mind-and-blood link. It was too old, too deeply entrenched, seated at the centre of his brain since birth. Mairon could feel the raw pain in him, more at his sister's name than Elgalad's, (because of course Vanimórë did not believed he was truly loved; he did not need Varda to confirm it) and Mairon did not want him looking for Vanya in the Gardens of Lórien. The pieces on the board were moving. It was vital Vanimórë not find his sister before the appointed time.

And there was, too, a fierce sense of possessiveness in Mairon. No-one should treat Vanimórë with cruelty unless he, Mairon, permitted it, which of course he had done, and many times. It was part of his ongoing plan. (Yes, ongoing) Now he was helpless, watching Varda spit poison at one who far outmatched her in every way.

Around him, the Void seethed with violence and madness. A shadow greater than the Dark spread itself over Mairon, and there was a sound like an earthquake as Melkor slammed a hand against the barrier. His teeth bared in a white rictus of hate and strange satisfaction. He said, through them: “How the mighty are fallen. But not far enough. Not nearly far enough.”

“They will,” Mairon offered coolly.  
  
“Yes. I will ensure it.” A pause. “Thy son...”

Mairon watched the stormy ring on Melkor's finger, the circlet that held the world.  
“Yes, my lord?”

“He may be useful, but I will have to destroy him in the end, he and the other. They hold too much power.”

Everything he felt, he hammered under a lid of steel.  
“For this reason he was born, lord. To be used, to be a tool.” And that was true enough. If Melkor had ever refined his mind as Mairon had learned to...but he was too arrogant save when there was no option, such as his parole in Valinor. Mairon had never had any choice in the matter; if he did not want Melkor's mind to scour his clean, he had to learn concealment. Thoughts were, anyhow, complicated, separated into conscious and subconscious, even among the Ainur, even without form, and they were untrustworthy. (Vanimórë believed that he hated his father; the truth was more complex).

And so Melkor did not look into Mairon and see his plan; it was layered over, built upon by thousands of years of service and, Mairon acknowledged, there was, somewhere, a desire in him to see Melkor restored, magnificent and terrible, to the world. To be what he _was_ , not what he became. But that thought was rooted deep in the past, buried in the ruins of Utumno, and under Melkor, Mairon would never be master of himself. Vanimórë, now a god, was yet his son and such bonds and habits ran deep.  
  
Melkor would be suspicious if he saw no hate in Mairon's mind, no ambition. There was no need to shield what was true. It was a dangerous game of balance, but Mairon had played it for a very long time.

Melkor's eyes scooped into his, then returned to Vanimórë.  
“Yes,” he mused. “Perhaps thy finest work.”

There was no perhaps, Mairon thought, and that thought too, he allowed to show. He was a maker and felt pride in his creations, just as Melkor had become a destroyer. But Mairon had long since come to the conclusion that Melkor's destiny was to destroy, to be the opposite of creation, and he followed a predetermined path. ( _“There must always be a balance.”_ Eru had said those words). Here in the Void there was greater clarity, and Mairon was certain that Melkor, too, knew what he was. Knew, and would not accept it. One might feel pity if one had access to that emotion.

“But he will _not_ usurp my place.”

Thunder the colour of blood flared in the limitless nothingness, and the denizens of the Void cowered. Sauron did not. He stared at his son, the vivid glory of him, eyes cold as they shut pain behind their gem-hard glitter. And he _willed_ Vanimórë not to give the Valar the satisfaction of knowing how Varda's words had hurt him.

 _Thou wilt not break for_ them, he commanded. _And watch them; remember what_ I _essayed._  
  
For a moment it seemed as though his son looked through the barrier, straight at Mairon.

OooOooO

Vanimórë said. “I have a thought.”

“Yes?” Glorfindel was regarding him with concern.

“Their strength wanes. But it occurs to me that there is _one_ source of power they might draw on, if they dared.”

Glorfindel's brows swooped down. “ _Morgoth?_ ”

“Or the Void. Souls sent there regain all the power they had in the beginning. Melkor, although imprisoned for now, is the same as the god who first set his foot upon the world unformed.”  
“Sauron essayed it a very few times, drawing power from the Void. It is the opposite of matter.”  
  
“Yes.” Glorfindel still frowned.

“He told me once it was like standing on the very edge of an avalanche and trying to scoop from it a handful of snow. But the Ainur can attempt it, for they were incorporeal, once. It is almost incredibly dangerous; there is too much risk of opening a door between us, matter, and non-matter, the Void. And such a collision would be utter destruction.”

“And now that the Void also holds spirits, the danger is that something may come through, as we believe will happen in Angmar.”  
  
“Yes,” Vanimórë agreed. “That too. We do not really want Melkor possessing Manwë's form. Though I wonder if Melkor would lower himself to that.”

They stood on the icy winds. Glorfindel's hair undulated like golden snakes.  
“Desperate people do foolish things,” he murmured. “I wonder...Dagor Dagorath. How much of that myth is true? I do not know, even now. I hoped some of it was. The Valar could not have spun that story, or not all of it; they would not have placed Túrin within it. Perhaps, at the end, we will be fighting against them, also, in all their power.”

Vanimórë shrugged. “Some of the Ainur will be on _our_ side, my friend. And even if they were not, we will do what we must.”  
  
Glorfindel smiled. “Damn thine aplomb, Vanimórë. Now I suppose we will have to keep an eye on Valinor indefinitely to see if the Valar really are stupid enough to try and sip power from the Void.”

“Oh, I am not calm, Glorfindel.” He flung back the shutters of his mind, and watched Glorfindel's widen with startlement and understanding. “I learned enough from both Melkor and Sauron to make death into an art-form of pain. I could crush their souls with it, though they die not, and turn them into mewling _things_ unable to shuck their bodies, forced to endure for Age upon Age. But it would not be enough, not for that unholy triad and the suffering they have caused. And others were before me in the lists.”

Glorfindel laid a hand on his arm. “They will become nothing in the end but squeaking shadows in the dark, forgotten save in ancient tales. Dust on the winds of night.”

“I look forward to it.” He wanted to be there, when the Noldor came and threw the Valar down, when Fëanor took Aman for his own. He wondered what he himself would be doing by that time, and the thought chilled him. The only thing he _had_ to do was resist the darkness that was his birthright.

His freedom exhilarated him and he feared it. He was frustrated, wanting Elgalad, knowing he must not have him lest he besmirch all that was bright and good, drink of him as from a spring of clean water until there was nothing left. Frustrated because he wanted to do _more_ , change the world and knew he could not. There was too much need in him, too much rage. He had been made a god, and _I do not know why._ All he could think was that it was a mistake. _I am questioning the One._ But Eru had only spoken to him that once, after his apotheosis. He no more answered now than the Valar had answered the screams of a boy in the deeps of Angband.  
  
He did not believe there was any room or need in the world for gods. Almost three Ages under first Melkor and then Sauron had showed him that. Arda was too fragile for them or rather, Mortals were and, in the end, this would become a world of Mortals. The Elves would return here, to Aman. But he, Vanimórë, had no place there.

 _I have too much freedom. Too much time to_ think.

He had controlled his thoughts during his slavery; he had to. Hope, the future, dreams, he could not afford them. Now...

“Come back.”

Vanimórë stared into the unfathomable blue eyes. Glorfindel came closer, his hands curved over Vanimórë's shoulders.  
“It would be an untruth to say I know thee,” Glorfindel said softly. “But seven years under the shadow of Barad-dûr was enough for me to know _something_ of thee. And back then thou didst retreat like this. What is it?”

Barriers slammed into place. “Nothing,” he said lightly. Everything. “I have to go. There is much I must do. I have to be away from Imladris as soon as possible to reach Umbar before winter.”

Glorfindel's long lashes flickered. He said, “Still thou wouldst deny Elgalad? Thou wilt not hurt him. I have harmed none of my lovers.”

“Thou art one who gives as well as takes. I take, only. I cannot help it. Look at me, Glorfindel.” Vanimórë felt the black tide of loathing rise in him as it always did when he thought of Elgalad. “Look _in_ me. ”

And Glorfindel did look, silent and intense. An expression flitted over his beautiful face, darkened his eyes. Vanimórë's smile was cold on his mouth  
“I could take nothing before, not truly. I was bound. Now I am free. I would do more than hurt Elgalad.” He brusquely crushed down emotion, squeezed the remnant in the fist of his mind, crumbled it. “It is not the power, or not only that. It is what I _need._.” His hands came up to lock around Glorfindel's arms. “There was a creature once, in Angband. Thuringwethil, they called her.” His mouth tightened at the memory. Sometimes Sauron had let her play with Vanimórë, to see if she could arouse him. But she disgusted him and, seeing that, she had become vicious, determined to master him. She never had. “She was once a Maia, though lesser than Sauron. She sometimes took the form of a bat, and she drank blood and life. I would do that to Elgalad, eventually. If I do not take him, perhaps I will not take — everything else.”

“Eru, Vanimórë.” Unbearable compassion filled Glorfindel's eyes. “Thou art talking to _me_. I can tell thee now, thou doth not only _take._ In Mordor, thou didst give me everything, and gloriously. Thou art not a monster.”

“No.” Vanimórë still smiled. His mouth tasted sunless glaciers. “I am worse. I am a monster who _knows he is one._ ”  
  


OooOooO


	59. ~ Waking Memories ~

  
**~ Waking Memories ~**

 

~ “Most Mortals cannot live with Elves, at least for a protracted length of time,” Gil-galad said. “That is why Fingolfin gave Dor-lómin to the Edain, so they might have their own lands. Apart from Cell and her husband, is there anywhere these women might settle?”

Elladan and Elrohir looked at one another.  
“There are places,” Elrohir said. “A village would have to be built from nothing of course, close enough to the settlements of the Dúnedian so that they could trade.”

“I have builders,” Gil-galad told them. “If thou knowest a good area, I can send them to survey it.”

“Hast thou asked them?” Vanimórë queried. “They are not cattle to be moved to fresh pastures.”  
  
“They have been asked, Vanimórë,” Gil-galad said with his luminous smile. Vanimórë, charmed, could not help smiling back. Infalling sunlight shaped Gil-galad's face from grainless marble. So beautiful, these Finwëions. And so peaceful these long summer evenings. Vanimórë wished it could be like this for him, but he knew in his gut that save for these snatched moments, it never would be. He was bred for war, to command, nothing else.

“I have been speaking to them,” Aredhel responded. “and observing them from the beginning. This is not _life_ to them. They do what they can, spin, dye, sew, make food, cook, but it is not enough to give them back the lives they had, the... _normality_ of them.”  
  
“They would have to practice husbandry, till the land,” Vanimórë offered. “It would not be easy.”  
  
“Some of them come from farming families,” Aredhel replied. “Carpenters, potters, weavers. The life would be hard, yes, but they are not weak. Some of them can hunt now, use weapons.”

“I brought them here because I could not think of another place to take them. I wanted them to heal in safety for a time, but I never thought they could remain here forever. If they know the risks and difficulties and still wish it, I have no authority over them, and I wish them well.”  
  
“But what of Cell?” Elladan asked. “And Túrin?”

She had tried to run with Túrin, the night Coldagnir came down from the sky, but had been intercepted and brought back, spitting with rage. Now Carreg had arrived and was closeted with his wife. There were reports of arguments and, unexpectedly, Carreg had brought Túrin to Beleg, face tight and an apology on his tongue. The boy's face was tear-stained.

“I think Carreg might allow him to remain,” Vanimórë murmured. “He may feel it is safer. I wager Cell would not.”

“She has come to believe that because of what he is, that we have already taken him away from her.” Aredhel frowned down at the table. “That she has no real part in his life. From the beginning Túrin has been drawn to Beleg.”

“Is that why she allowed him to be abused?” Vanimórë thrust himself away from the wall. “ _We_ did not cause Túrin's spirit to be reborn.”

“She cannot blame Eru,” Gil-galad said. “So of course she will blame us.”  
  
“Listen.” Vanimórë folded his arms. “Dana wants her to take the boy. She said that filth Lorh should be allowed to go free. I will not dance to her piping any longer. Whatever her relationship to Elúred and Elúrin she is not their mother. She is as fallible as any of the Valar and it has taken me a long time to admit that. I believe she simply waits to continue her battle against Melkor, and anything else is subject to her whims.”

“Does she present a problem?” Gil-galad asked straightly.

“I do not know for certain. I am not sure she truly cares. Not about the things we care about, anyhow.”

“I thought you knew her,” Elrohir raised his brows.

“No. If any-one does it is Eru. She is impenetrable to me, and always has been. Her greater plan is vast. Sometimes she has helped, mostly she remains aloof. But she showed no feeling at Túrin's abuse, no pity, nothing.”

“Then thou dost not trust her?”  
  
He shrugged. “I have never trusted her. She is not...dependable. I trust no power save Glorfindel because he, like myself, was not born one.”  
  
“I can most certainly understand that,” Gil-galad said. “Thinks't thou she would sabotage our actions in this war?”

Vanimórë thought about it. At last he said, “I do not know. Truly.”

“Then we deal with it if it happens.” Elladan leaned back in his seat. “But what do we do about the boy?”

“Believe me,” Vanimórë said. “I do not want to tear him from Cell's arms. He is not mine. He is her son, no matter what soul he bears, but I do not trust this not to happen again in another place, with other Men, not from any wickedness or malice on her part, but that she will affect to ignore it as she did here. I can even understand her disconnection from the child, if she feels she will lose him, but I _cannot_ condone it. ”

“Yes,” said Gil-galad slowly, his brilliant eyes looking inward to some other time, some other place. “I have to agree. We will wait then, until Carreg and Cell come to us.” He shook his head slightly as if tossing away clinging shadows. “And what of Eärendil? How is he?”  
  
“ Eärendil,” Elrohir repeated. “Eru.” He slid his hands across his face.

OooOooO

He woke like a man expecting torture.

The twins had asked Glorfindel to stay until Eärendil woke, for he and Fanari, both known to him, to be the first faces he saw.

His eyes flared open. They were the blue of flax flowers, as Glorfindel remembered, startlingly bright.

“Eärendil,” Glorfindel said gently.

He sat up abruptly, lips parting. His breath caught in his throat. His voice came rough and underused.  
“Glorfindel?” Then: “Fanari?” His eyes swept the corners of the room, registering it. “Where...?”

“Thou art in Imladris, on Middle-earth.”  
  
Fanari rose, held a cup of honeyed mead to his lips. He sipped, choked, drank again.

“How?” he asked. “Why?”  
  
The horror of it was that he did not know how long he had been up there and, at first, remembered nothing beyond his grief at Elros' fate. Anguished, hating, he had been forced aboard Vingilot, had taken her up and then...  
“Manwë...He came, and then I seemed to wake from sleep and he was there again, over and over. It was like a nightmare I could not escape from.”  
His hands clenched. “Every time I woke. I could not move. And then I would sleep and wake again.”  
  
Glorfindel took him by the shoulders.  
“This is not a dream,” he promised.

How do you tell a man of the passing of Ages?  
Slowly, and with many pauses.

Elladan and Elrohir came in, but no-one else over the days that followed. There was nothing wrong with Eärendil's body, though he ate and drank as a man whom had been denied the simple pleasures of taste. He sat and walked, relished the scent of summer blowing in through the windows.

“Elwing?” he glanced at Fanari whom had asked, and had known his wife. “She left me. She could not forgive herself, in the end, for leaving our sons, or me for all-but abandoning her on my long voyages. But I did not know what else to do. The Elves were failing...and I believed, _then_ ,” His voice cracked on a choke of bitter laughter. “that the Valar were our only hope.” He fell silent for a while as he often did, his eyes looking back into the past. “And neither could I forgive either of us. I held a Silmaril long enough to feel its power, and know it was not for me. Not for _them_ either, though they claimed it. That is what they went to war for, to recover the others.” His mouth thinned to bloodlessness.

“Yes,” Glorfindel said. “I know that.”

“Eönwë told me, though I had guessed.” Eärendil rose from the chair walked to the balcony. He seemed to not be able to breathe enough of the air of Middle-earth. “ _Eru_! I have longed for this. And now that I am here.” He turned his head. “Thou hast told me so much, Glorfindel, but I have more questions.”

“If I can answer them, I will.”

A shadowy smile moved Eärendil's mouth. “It does not surprise me thou wert given power,” he said. “I worshipped thee as a child, a god I could comprehend.”

Glorfindel's answering smile, remembering the bright-haired child, held sadness.  
“Well,” he said wryly. “I am trying to do the best I can. Learning and unlearning a great deal.”

“ _They_ never learn anything. Or most of them. There are a few, I think, who will join us.” He raised his brows. “The mighty dead have returned.” His eyes flashed to steel. “There must be _justice_. It was not Morgoth who doomed the Noldor.”

“All I can tell thee,” Glorfindel said carefully with a glance at Fanari. “is that yes, Fëanor intends to take war to Valinor. Not yet. New Cuiviénen...it was supposed to give us something we never had: a land of our own in a world where we did not have to war for our very survival.”

“But of course, that has not quite happened,” Fanari added.

“I will fight with thee,” Eärendil said quickly. “I do not want to go back there unless with an invading army.”

Glorfindel looked at Fanari who looked back. They were both wondering how to say the next words.

“ Eärendil, there is something thou – ”  
  
“–shouldst be aware that – ”

They stopped.

“What is it thou dost not want to tell me?” he asked slowly.

“Tuor and Idril,” Fanari told him. “They came to New Cuiviénen, but not for freedom. They came looking for Maeglin.”

“ _What_?”

“He too was reborn. Those who were banished to the Everlasting Dark made full requital.”  
  
“He does acknowledge his actions,” Glorfindel interposed, watching Eärendil's frozen face. “He has a part in this, and Fingolfin has claimed him. He is not the man he was then.”

“He tried to kill me,” Eärendil said flatly. “Dost _thou_ forgive him, Glorfindel? Fanari?”

“I wanted to send him straight back to the Halls of Waiting when I saw him,” Glorfindel admitted, remembering his blinding rage. “But now...I had a great deal to do with his descent.”

“He was obsessed with my mother.”

“Yes, partly. And with me. And I knew it. I played him as if he were a harp. I could have prevented him.”

Eärendil's brows drew in.  
“He was responsible for his own actions, Glorfindel. It is not for thee to bear the weight of them.”  
  
“Yes, and so he says, but he was mad, and madness twists the mind.”

“My father...” There was a strangeness in his voice. “He wants to kill Maeglin, yes?”  
  
“No doubt, but he cannot kill a man who has already died and served his sentence in the Void.”  
  
Eärendil paced the room. Glorfindel could not imagine how he felt. He had come back into a world lost to him for thousands of years as if he has slept those years, waking only to nightmares.  
  
“And they have changed,” Fanari said quietly. “They have lived too long among the Valar.”

At the word, pure _hate_ ripped across Eärendil's face.  
“Just promise me,” he said, “that they will be brought down – utterly. Thou hast told me their power is fading, but that is not enough. Not for me.”

“No it is not,” Glorfindel replied. “they will be nothing but memories in the end.”

Eärendil ran his hands over his face.  
“Then I will see him. Maeglin.”

“He is not here,” Fanari said. “He went with Gil-galad and Tindómion west to the Noldorin war camps. But he will come back.” She hesitated. “I think thou shouldst see him, yes.”

“Well, a _Balrog_ brought me from Vingilot; one of those who attacked Gondolin. Perhaps my meeting Maeglin is not such a strange thing.” His lips formed a small, wry smile. It fell away. “I dream sometimes of being above that angry world. So far away...Arda is just a bright star.” He shuddered.

“Eärendil, do not.” Fanari came to him, took his hands. “It is _over._ and they _will_ pay.”

“Some things are never over,” he said. “And thou knowest that better than most, I think.”

OooOooO

Autumn drew its colours slowly that year, lazily and late. The wood-Elves had departed, though a few remained. Vanimórë left for Dale with Elgalad, Zeva and the Eastern Men, but the young soldiers of Mordor remained. Vanimórë had, albeit with reluctance, agreed to their decision to remain. If any other Men escaped Carn Dûm, they would at least, see familiar faces.  
“I honour thy loyalty,” he told them, knowing the terrors they tried to hide. Kashan still woke from nightmares. “I will return next year. Thou art guests of Imladris and will come under the supervision of Elladan and Elrohir. Obey their orders. They have fought the dark for a very long time.”

It was in the evening, two days before his departure. He had brought them a jug of wine, dark as garnets.  
“Knowest thou,” he said, watching them, “How Malantur, the Mouth that was, gained his long life?”

“The Great Lord gave it to him, Sire,” Narok said. “Sorcery. Blood magic, it was said. There were rumours...Every-one knew what he did in Lugbúrz.”

Kashan was already looking very pale.

“Yes, he was free there to practise his atrocities,” Vanimórë said flatly. “But Sauron also gave him my blood. Not once but many times.” Bound by Sauron's will, _loathing_ Malantur's sickly and unspeakable lust for him. “He rarely gave his own. And mine was... enough.”

“Little wonder,” Kashan whispered. “That he is so afraid of you now, Sire.”

“He was always afraid, and corrupt long before he entered Sauron's service.” Vanimórë let the quiet of the evening wrap them round before he said, “There are some, here and there, like Malantur. Ones that I chose myself.” He had been lonely, or thought they needed it, a chance to live after suffering, or perhaps he had simply loved them. He did not bind them to him, though he would not lie to himself and say he had not been tempted. They were probably scattered across the East or South of the world.  
“I could give that to thee,” he said soft as the night. “Thou wouldst not age any more. It does not mean immortality. Thou canst still die, but there would be no sickness, wounds would heal more easily. And if Malantur were to capture thee, he would sense my blood in thee and would not kill thee. He needs that blood. When Prince Bainalph was taken, he was imprisoned to feed Malantur because Elven blood is powerful but mine, especially now, even more so. It is not much, but better than what thou doth fear. And so, if thou wert captured thou wouldst at least live until the time when we bring down Carn Dûm.” _I hope._ It would be a titanic battle that might well destroy the ancient fortress and every-one within it. But it was all he could think of, all he could offer them.

The three young men were still as ice, not even blinking. Hardly breathing.

“It has to be thine own choice,” he added.  
  
“Would we become like _him_ , Sire?” Vaija asked in an undervoice.

“ _Power_ can corrupt.” _I do not know._ “Long life of itself does not. I think it depends on the individual. But I will not lie. It will not be easy for thee. Among Men thou might remain for ten, twenty years and then have to move on; they would notice that thou wert not changing, ageing. Thou wouldst forever be set apart. It is lonely.”

The silence was longer this time. Now they were looking at one another, words passing without voice. Kashan took a long breath and rose.  
“Yes, Sire. I would do this.”

Narok and Vaija came to their feet, nodding.

_Of course they would say yes. That is the dream of every Mortal is it not?_

“Thou art sure of this? because it cannot be undone.”

“Yes,” they answered him.  
  
“Thou wilt not believe it,” he told them. “Not for perhaps twenty or thirty years.” He drew a dagger from its sheath, traced a cut across his left palm and clenched it over the wine jug. His blood vanished into the dark red depths. In his minds eye he saw it spreading into their bodies, to every cell, _changing_ them. The eyes on him were huge and bright. Kashan came forward with a clean kerchief to bind his hand. He waved it away.  
“No matter. I heal very quickly.” He poured the wine into three cups. “From what I have observed with others, it will burn a little, taste hot, and then thou wilt sleep deeply. Which is why I am doing this now, not tomorrow. I will see thee in the morning, answer any questions. And I will tell those who should know.”

They hesitated at the last, then Kashan wet his lips, tilted the cup to his mouth and drank the wine to the dregs. His pupils enlarged so that blackness filled his eyes. There was, for an instant the glow of fire in their depths. The cup fell, ringing and rolling as he gasped and fell to his knees. For a moment he looked terrified, betrayed as if Vanimórë had given him poison. Then he slumped bonelessly to the ground. Vaija and Narok almost spilled their wine.

“He is merely sleeping.” Vanimórë picked him up. “Look, he breathes.” He regarded them with sympathy. “Thou needst not do this.”

They looked at Kashan, then back at him, and as one, they drank.  
  
He laid them in their beds, watched them as night gathered over the valley.

“They are all right?” Elgalad murmured behind him.

“They are not hurt. I hope it may help them....after that, who knows?”

“They would follow th-thee. And so would the others thou hast...changed.”  
Vanimórë turned. Elgalad's eyes seemed to look directly into his soul.  
“I want them to _live_ , to be free.”

“But they do not even understand th-the concept of freedom, d-do they? Without the structure of an order they comprehend, they are l-lost.”

Vanimórë's mouth twisted. “Thou art right. They were born of slave-farms, trained as warriors from childhood. But they _can_ learn to be free. I am. I think they will stay here until the end of the war.” _if they survive it._

Elgalad looked at them. Their faces were drowned deep in sleep.  
“The others. Thou dost n-not know where they are?”

“I could find them if I wished. But...” He moved away to the balcony, walked down the steps. “At first I had a dream of creating a company of ageless warriors who were loyal only to me. But what could I do with them? Had I taken them to Mordor they would have become Sauron's creatures. Or maybe I tried to purchase company for myself. It was wrong. Better to go to a night moth who sells their body for coin than try to bribe people, put them under an obligation.” He thought of Varda's words with a frisson of hate. Despair ran at its side like a black wolf.  
  
“Art thou th-thinking that _I_ am under some obligation t-to thee?” And, without waiting for his answer: “I was born for thee, and there is n-nothing thou canst do to change that fact.” His hair glittered like stars. “I will give thee all th-thou hast ever wanted, all those years, creating ageless companions thou wouldn't n-not keep because thou didst believe they would remain out of _obligation._ ”

“I had no right to keep them,” he said savagely.

“They would have l-loved thee, hadst thou allowed them to. Ever thou d-doth turn away. But I will not let thee turn from _me_.”

“And how long before they came to hate me?” Vanimórë asked. _How long before thou dost?_

“Why dost thou think th-they would?” Elgalad asked, his expression gentle. Vanimórë stepped away from him.  
“I cannot speak of this now,” he said. “There is much I have to do.”

Elgalad stared at him. Then his face changed. “Thou art tired,” he stated softly.

Eru, he was.  
“Not in body, but yes,” he admitted. “my soul is tired. I want to _do_ and cannot, and I want to be here, but I must return these Men to the East, take the Uruk-hai somewhere they may have some kind of life.” Search for somewhere he could live. He smiled. “Do not worry about me.”

“It seems some-one m-must.” Elgalad lifted a hand, curled it around Vanimórë's shoulder. “At least come and sleep. Let me hold thee. N-nothing else.”

When Coldagnir entered the bedchamber, he stopped in his tracks. Vanimórë lay within Elgalad's arms, his back to Elgalad's breast. Black and silver hair bled into one another.

Vanimórë's face was unearthly beautiful in its utter tranquillity, as if he had found a sanctuary long-sought. Which, Coldagnir thought, he had. He remembered the peace and almost incomprehensible pleasure he had found with Elgalad, the savage glory of Vanimórë. These two had helped him in ways he had not believed possible. And they trusted him. Vanimórë trusted him to best Gothmog when Coldagnir did not – could not – trust himself.

“Fly to the Sun,” he had said. “It is time to return to the days before the universe was spun into Time. Remember the power of it. What thou art.”

Coldganir had gone and bathed in the energy that was Arien. She, like all the Ainur who formed the stars were bound in their own cycle of destruction and creation and would, one day, transform into something other, return to the Timeless Halls. Such had been their choice at the beginning. Coldagnir had not taken that path. He had not wanted to bind himself to anything, only to be free, to have form, to revel in it. Now, he was both free and bound, bound to Fëanor, and he did not regret that because Fëanor, in some way, was greater than all of them...

But Coldagnir had been paralysed with fear when he felt Gothmog and came to understand he must face his brother, his lover, his torturer, again. Until he left Arda for the Sun's fire, saw, beyond the envelope of air that surrounded the globed world, the majesty of starlight and remembered what he was. It had called to him and he had been tempted, so very tempted to flee into it, but the oath and his own long embodiment defeated that desire. He was too accustomed to _being_.  
And so he had turned away, had seen the planet, fierce and inimical to human life – and found the ship.

At the end of the Great Defeat (or the War of Wrath as the Elves named it) this ship had flown out of the western sky, the Silmaril (a _real_ one) ablaze like lightning, to battle Ancalagon, mightiest of all the dragons. Its captain Coldagnir had not seen, too bright had been that light for him to look upon, but whatever the man had been then, a weapon, a terror to Melkor's hosts, now he was ensorcelled and a prisoner. Coldagnir knew imprisonment, knew too the isolation of loneliness, even in the deeps of Utumno and Angband, but he had never been as alone as this man whose blue eyes looked into ages of nightmares.

Coldagnir had detonated with hatred against power misused, and that burning broke the chains of his fear. It had not vanished entirely; he would be a fool if it had. But he was no longer crippled by it. He _must_ resist Gothmog, not just for his very survival, but for every-one who would fight Angmar.

 _I am sorry for my fears,_ he said silently to Vanimórë, not wanting to disturb his rest. _I vow to thee that I will do my utmost._

He would have turned away then, left the room, but saw that Elgalad was looking at him, not asleep. He smiled.  
_Come._

Once, Coldagnir had believed sex would be magnificent and pleasurable, and been shown it was a horror he came to beg for. In different ways, Fëanor, Vanimórë and Elgalad had healed him. There was, for him, no one way, no one simple pleasure. But sometimes one needed _this_.  
Without waking, Vanimórë drew Coldagnir into his arms, and for a while for both of them, there was peace.  
  


OooOooO 

  



	60. ~ Autumn Bonfires ~

**~ Autumn Bonfires ~**

 

Dead leaves scattered across the terraces with a farewell _hush_ , the wind casting them where it would as it dragged low cloud across the waterfalls, tugged at his cloak. He unfastened it, folded it across his arm as he stepped into his chamber. Braziers burned against the falling dusk. A pitcher of hot wine steamed on a table. It felt a little like coming home.

Lómion had, at the beginning, wanted to face Eärendil as soon as possible. It was Fingolfin whom had told him to wait, to leave Imladris for a time.  
_Eärendil has suffered his own torment,_ Fingolfin said. _Glorfindel believes he must have time to recover, to accustom himself to life, and I agree._  
  
Lómion did not argue. Even the thought of Fingolfin drenched him in _loveneedadoration,_ the determination to prove himself. He went with Gil-galad and Tindómion to the Noldor encampments – and that in itself had been an ordeal. The eyes that followed him were sharp as a volley of arrows, blanketed in silence. Gil-galad was loved as only a fallen hero can be, but his people were not slaves; they had their own minds and were using them. Lómion looked enough like Gil-galad for there to be no doubt of his identity. It struck him, as he was lead to the great pavilion, not for the first time, but now with force, how _much_ Fingolfin, and Fëanor too risked by accepting him. Kings could be thrown down. Finrod had been.

Gil-galad and Tindómion had drawn their horses apart so that he was riding between them. It was an honour, and his Finwëion pride insisted that this was his due, while the _betrayer_ shrank away.

 _”If not now,_ Gil-galad had said. _“When?”_

Lómion was forced to the stratagems he had used in Gondolin, to appear aloof, uncaring of opinion (when he cared so much). He expected a challenge, even a dagger in his back, but there was nothing but the weight of bright, summing eyes. When they dismounted, the warriors had shifted closer to Gil-galad's pavilion. He felt two gauntleted hands settle on his shoulders, the presence of their bodies close to him.

“High Prince Fingolfin has claimed Lómion, son of Aredhel as his grandson, with the knowledge and support of the High King.” His voice was a king's, accustomed to command, clear as silver. “Lómion has a part to play in this war, and all debts were paid in the Everlasting Dark.”  
Perhaps he allowed them to see it, something of the horror that dwelt behind his eyes, lived in Lómion's own, brought him awake, gasping.  
“If thou hast any concerns, take them to thy captains.” Gil-galad nodded, turned and guided Lómion into the tent. The guards dropped the flaps behind them.

It was a king's tent, spacious and proof against the coming winter. It muffled the sussurus of talk from outside. A small, appreciative smile curled Tindómion's rich mouth as he looked at Gil-galad.  
“Superb,” he said. “Almost, _almost_ as arrogant as a Fëanorion.”  
  
Gil-galad's eyes flickered with amusement. “Surely that is impossible,” he responded wryly, then: “That will not be the end of it.”

“Of course not,” Tindómion agreed. “But thy people have fought with thee, died in the War of Wrath, in Eregion, at the Morannon and in Mordor. I do not believe they will desert thee.”

“Not every-one is like thee, Istelion, though I hope we have cleared that nest.” He offed his cloak. “I will not stand for it again. I should not have suffered it then.”  
  
Tindómion went to the tent flap and lifted it, speaking quietly to one of the guards.  
“It was not the same, before.” He turned back.

“It will not be the same now,” Gil-galad proclaimed, sword-steel in his voice.

They looked so much like Fëanor and Fingolfin, even their interaction, all that half-leashed passion and desire. There was so much heat between them Lómion wondered how they could keep their hands off one another.  
He felt suddenly, acutely as he had in Gondolin, seen and not seen, passed over, a prince yet a nonentity, battling every day to hold his ground, one of the houseless standing beyond a lighted window, looking in on warmth and companionship he could never share. He said, almost harshly: “I have not yet proved myself, and yet thou hast risked the ire of thy people.”

Both of them gazed at him for a little too long for his comfort until, as if motivated by the same thought, they stepped toward him.

“Fingolfin said thou wouldst not have betrayed him.” Gil-galad raised a brow in interrogation.

Heat flashed the length of Lómion's body. His mouth parted, but for a moment he could say nothing. _How did Fingolfin know?_ He caught his breath.  
“But he did not believe Fëanor would betray him. Did he?”

“Hmm,” Tindómion mused. “But neither do I think thou wouldst have. There would have been no reason.”

“The High Kingship?” Lómion suggested dourly. “Whom is to say I would not have coveted that?”

To his surprise, Tindómion smiled.  
“I think that he would have claimed thee then as he has now, and thou wouldst have loved him too much to betray him. And he would have returned it.”

Almost, Lómion bowed his head only to snap straight his spine as servants entered the tent with food and wine. Gil-galad moved to the table and poured three cups of wine. As he offered them, he flicked a look at Tindómion. So much rode in that glance.  
“Welcome to the family,” he said.

  
It was a relief to ride north the next day, even though Angmar filled him with cold dread, knowing what he did now: Angband, buried by titanic war, lay in its roots. He wished his memory was subject to erosion, that he could not remember Morgoth. But he did.

They found both orcs and Men, and more orcs than they expected.

“He fights like thee,” Tindómion commented to Gil-galad after the first violent engagement. “As one whom has returned from the dead.”

“Or like thee,” Gil-galad suggested. “Whom has never ceased.”

Enough people saw it, perhaps. But then he had never been called a coward. It would need more. It would require everything. And he would give it willingly.

They captured seven Men in all. The first snows were already falling over the Mountains of Angmar, and the young captain Kashan said he doubted any of the remaining soldiers would come forth until spring.

“They are relieved, sir,” he said to Lómion. An understatement, that, if the men's eyes, prematurely aged, were an accurate mirror for their souls. “But they do not wholly trust us. We ran away when the Prince ordered us, or rather, I did, and ordered Narok and Vaija to come with me. I was their captain. It is for me to regain their loyalty, but they hope to see the Prince.”

“Has he not spoken to them?” Lómion asked.

“Yes, into their minds, if that is what you mean, sir, but it is not the same. They want to _see_ him.”

They watched the Men carefully on the journey back to Imladris. All were undernourished, silent save for in their restless sleep, but as the leagues fell behind them and Angmar retreated like a bad dream, they seemed to shed its weight a little, look about them at the open land. They began to talk to Kashan, Vaija and Narok.

 _There is no need to question them,_ Vanimórë had told them. _Now they are out of Angmar, I can read them. They were not close to Malantur – those who are, are rarely seen now. But they have seen and heard enough. He is still experimenting._ His voice was grim as a curse.

No wonder, thought Lómion, they owned old eyes in young faces. Although the three young Mordorians were directly under the authority of Elladan and Elrohir, Lómion rode with them. Vanimórë had asked him to keep an eye on them, if he would.

“Why me?” he had asked.

“Because thou hast known what it feels to be displaced, uncertain. And Elladan and Elrohir have a great many other matters to attend to.”

“Then I will,” he agreed.

He was aware of what Vanimórë had done to them, saw how they struggled to believe it, pushing it to the backs of their minds. But it showed in their eyes, the way they moved and fought. They were all handsome youths, but now there was something of Vanimórë's striking beauty in their faces and forms, as if it had passed into them with his blood. They did not appear entirely Mortal any-more. He wondered if they had noticed. They never spoke of it to him.

On their return to Imladris, they lead the other soldiers away to bathe and eat, and Lómion went to his own chambers. He drank a cup of hot wine, tapped his fingers against the metal, then put it aside as Aredhel entered. She embraced him, subjected him to a long look he could not interpret, then told him to join them at feast later.  
“We all have much to speak of,” she said. “Bathe and change.”

“I thought I would see how the Men were settling first,” he said, as she helped him with his armour. “Where is Beleg?”

“With Túrin, in Fanari's rooms,” she said. Carreg had taken his wife from Imladris in the summer. It had not been an easy thing, and could never have been.

“And,” he paused. “Eärendil?”

“He will not be at the feast,” Aredhel said. “There has been news from Mithlond. Tuor and Idril have arrived.”  
  
He set the armour on its stand.  
“Hast thou seen him?”

“Briefly.” Usually, Aredhel's emotions coloured her voice, but not now. He glanced at her, saw her eyes sombre. “Thou shouldst come and speak to Fanari first, perhaps. She has spent much time with him.”

He nodded. “Very well. The Men should be at the bath-house. I will bathe there and then come and see her.” He drew fresh clothes from a chest.

Lamplight studded the valley rose and amber and gold in the windy dusk. There was no-one around, though some of the windows were open to let in the autumn air. The wind soughed through bare branches, mournful. It was at times like this that he almost felt the presence of his father...He had come to think of himself as Noldo, but that was only half his bloodline. He was not ashamed of his Sindarin heritage, but it was too entangled with his father's hate and eventual madness for him to feel comfortable embracing it. Beleg whom had soothed the torn edges of that wound and still it was not a wound that could ever, now, be healed.  
Eöl Where had his spirit gone, lost under the drowning seas?

Too late. Too late to wish mistakes undone, to wish the story had been written in a different hand, with a different ending.  
  
He quickened his pace, strode onto one of the airy walkways that lead to the bath-house. The scent of soap and fragrant oils greeted him in a wash of steam, but the baths were empty. A servant, gathering towels, told him that the Men had come and gone.

“I thank thee.” He unlaced his tunic. He would have to see them later.

The heated water swirled in and away as he washed, then mounted to the tiles and pressed the lever which brought a flood of clean water to rinse his hair and body. When the last of the soap was gone, Lómion wrung out his hair, twisted it into a loose knot, and folded a towel about his hips.

He passed into the ante-room where his clothes had been laid. For his meeting with Eärendil he had decided to dress like a prince. Clothing as armour. His tunic was deep blue, its high collar, cuffs and hem deeply edged with silver embroidery. The breeches and boots were of the finest black doeskin. A circlet of silver would crown his Finwëion braids. And Eärendil would see none of it, only the man who brought Morgoth down on Gondolin and might have killed him. He remembered the feel of the child's struggling body in his arms, his screams echoed by Idril's...

“How strange to see thee thus. I remember a beautiful monster, his eyes filled with death.”  
  
Eärendil's eyes burned with thousands of years of hatred.

OooOooO

“I will not say this before any-one else, but I must say it to thee before I depart: Thou art in danger of losing everything.”

Fingolfin regarded his second son for a long, silent moment. Turgon looked back at him, face bright and angry.  
  
“How so?”

“It is not only Maeglin.” Anger tightened Turgon's eyes. “But thou shouldst have told me.”

“Perhaps,” Fingolfin conceded. “But I was thinking of Aredhel.”

“I know. And I know thou hast felt guilt at commanding her to come with me to Gondolin, and believe that I should not have let her leave. But thou knowest what she is like.”

“Yes.” Of course he knew. He thought it was for the best, that she would be safer there than anywhere. “But I do not blame thee. We were all of us pushing against the Doom laid on us.”  
  
Turgon folded his arms. “Unless he dies, Maeglin will come before me and the Gondolindhrim. He must.”  
  
“He agrees to that, as I have said.” Fingolfin raised a hand to forestall the words marching toward his son's lips. “Every-one knows now why he was released from the Void. It was Ilúvatar Himself who decreed that _all_ the Noldor, those in the Halls of Mandos, we in the Dark, those on Tol Eressëa, in Valinor, _all_ should be given a new life, a second chance. Including him. How many times must we repeat this?” Turgon's breath went out of him in a little hiss. “Thou wert not in the Everlasting Dark, thank Eru. Believe me, he has paid for a thousand betrayals.”  
  
“So thou sayest.” His son rose, chopped a hand down. “Yes, some of my people were cast into the Void also. More than I suspected. Thinks't thou I do not grieve for what they suffered? But I do not grieve for _him._ Nor,” he bit out. “Fëanor, or his sons.”

Fingolfin pitched his voice lower. “Why didst thou take the Blood-kiss, hating him as thou dost, an Oath to him that cannot be broken?”

“What choice did I have?” Turgon demanded, his colour high. “I had a right to be a member of the council.”

“He chose thee as a member.”

“And so he should have. I was a king, and so my people still call me. And would not Fëanor break that oath if it suited him? Nothing is beyond him. A member of the council, yes, yet I am powerless, it would seem.”

“Fëanor would not let thee found a new city, neither would he have let Finrod take his people north were either of thee powerless.”

Turgon laughed, a sound filed with bile. “He let Finrod go because Finrod has embraced this new life so completely I hardly recognise him. And because of Celegorm.”

Fingolfin could not deny it, but he said, “Dost thou truly wish thy people to be unfree?” He had never visited Gondolin in life, only in death, but he had heard of Turgon's strict laws. Fingolfin did not think his son wholeheartedly agreed with the Laws of the Valar; rather, he wanted control.

“Not unfree, father. But not this...this decadence. It undermines. Everything. There have to be laws.”  
  
Fingolfin raised his brows at the word 'decadence'. “There are laws.”

“ _His_ laws.”

“He is High King. And I will remind thee he was appointed by Eru through Glorfindel.” Turgon threw up his head. “He wants his people to be happy, not curtailed as they once were.” And so too did Fingolfin want that. “That is not precisely decadent. Thou wert fortunate to fall in love with Elenwë. There were others not so lucky. I vowed I would arrange no marriages for my children.”

Turgon's eyes were cold. “There is no need to remind me that thou didst never love my mother.”

“Neither did she love me,” Fingolfin returned dryly. “The marriage was political. But the children we made together, those I love.”

“So thou sayest, but tell me thou art not disappointed in me because I remained in Gondolin during the Dagor Bragollach, that I did not subject my people to its ruin, did not come to the aid of Hithlum? I still see blame in the eyes of thy people, in the eyes of the Fëanorions.”

Not in Fingolfin's because he would never let it show.  
“I do not question thy courage, Turgon. Sometimes kings must make decisions they regret.”

“I do not regret it,” his son said hardly, showing Fingolfin his straight back. “At least I kept my people safe for a time. Longer than Nargothrond, longer than Hithlum or the lands of the Fëanorions. Yes, I loved Gondolin. Is that so strange? It was a copy of Tirion. It was beautiful.”

It was a city, Fingolfin thought. Just a city of stone. As if Turgon heard him, he flung round, his eyes burning. Yet still he was controlled enough to slip into mind-speech.  
_I am bound, and a member of the High Council, but I will_ not _sit here and watch thee destroy thyself – and Fingon too, because he will ever stand at thy shoulder. I told thee it was not the matter of Maeglin alone._ He seemed about to reach out, but his hands dropped to fist at his sides. _Thou whose name was courage unsurpassed, wouldst see that besmirched and trodden in the mud for_ him.

Him. Not Maeglin. Fëanor.

 _Canst thou not see that?_ Turgon's mind-voice lashed. _Thy people will not accept_ him. _Eru. I_ respected _thee once, but now..._

Fingolfin met his son's eyes and said nothing. His face, he knew, was blank and haughty. He simply stared until Turgon, with a curse, whirled and left the tent. Only then, alone, did Fingolfin loose a long breath.  
  
Was it so obvious, or was this simply whispers that had filtered through the encampment since _Nost-na-Lothion._ But from whom? There had been few there to witness and Turgon was not one of them. Or had he known long ago?

 _Fëanor._ Even the name. An obsession that went beyond obsession, surviving madness, betrayal, death, the Everlasting Dark. An ache in his soul, a perpetual gnawing hunger. To live without him had been dust and ash, unassuagable grief. There were no words to touch that pain.

 _Yet I still hold him off._ Because if he did not, if he gave himself, even in secret and Fëanor betrayed him again... Fingolfin did not know what he would do save kill Fëanor. It went too deep for there to be any other ending.

OooOooO

The marble was covered by dark blue woollen rugs. Fingolfin might have moved into his palace by now, but he was waiting until it was completely finished, down to the last outbuilding. His household was large, and he wanted to see them settled.

The colours of the stained-glass windows were muted by the onset of night, and the carpenters, masons, engineers were gone to their tents. They might have worked day and night, but there was no need here, as there had been when the Noldor founded their kingdoms in exile. Remembering, Fingolfin ran his fingers over the cool marble of the wall. He had not sacrificed beauty for strength entirely when he built Barad Eithel, but it had been a fortress far removed from the white mansions of Tirion.

The wind, cool, from the sea, moaned through the unfinished arches and doorways as it must have sung its dirge through broken Barad Eithil, Nargothrond, Gondolin...  
A flick of movement turned his head.

“It progresses well,” Fëanor commented.

“Yes,” Fingolfin agreed as his blood ran hot.

“I hear good reports of your training, too.”

“And I of thine.”

The Noldor knew that they were going to war. A spark had lit itself along the warriors veins. It was as if they sought to prove themselves, whom had fallen in battle aforetime. Each great House had initiated training in the flat land about Gaear Gwathluin, and every few days there would be competitions among them which had resulted in some quite serious injuries.

“The news of Eärendil is also promising,” Fingolfin added.

“Yes, so Glorfindel has said. I am not surprised,” Fëanor said with a predatory smile. “that he wishes to join our war.”

“Thou hast always known he did not carry one of the Silmarils.”

“It was shown to me,” Fëanor said. “In the Void. Everything that hurt, remember? Everything that would give us grief. Perhaps Manwë hoped that showing me a Silmaril in the Valars hands would make me careless enough for Morgoth to devour me.”

For a moment, Fingolfin was there again, bodiless in the Void, battling every moment against the rapacious destruction of Morgoth's will as images of death and grief exploded across his mind like a storm again, and again and again. Fëanor had _burned_ there, refusing to be devoured, and Fingolfin could do no less because Fingon was there too, and later, Gil-galad. Fëanor had been waiting for him. (Oh, Fëanor) It was almost enough to know that his spirit still blazed. Fingolfin had to hold. There would be nothing if he failed. He could not permit that.

He slammed the memory away, eyes holding Fëanor's as they had in the Dark, wanting to grip him, hold him tight against the terror.  
“Thou hast said nought of it until now.” He hammered his words into calm.

Fëanor's hand came lightly down on his wrist. His fingers curled about it.  
“Death gives us clarity. When my spirit passed I could _see_ and truly. The Silmarils did not matter. Or rather, they mattered, for they were part of me, the only part Morgoth could rape. But my sons were my _life_ , even in death, and I could not reach them to tell them they mattered more. And if I had, they were still bound by the Oath.” He paused, closed his eyes for a moment. “I will reclaim the Silmarils when the time is right. I have had long enough to consider them.”  
  
“Thou hast learned a little temperance,” Fingolfin remarked, his pulse leaping under Fëanor's touch.

Fëanor widened his eyes. “Only a little?”

“A _very_ little.” He could not quite suppress the smile.  
  
“Good.” Fëanor leaned toward him, filling the world with his rich, perilous fire. “Everything will come in time. In _my_ time.”

“ _Again_ thou art thinking that thou wilt have everything. Every-one.”  
  
“I am not a despot.” The lucent eyes danced. “Tell me thou didst not think of the Noldor as thine when thou wert High King. Is that not one of the reasons thou didst ride in rage and grief to challenge Morgoth.” The light in his eyes changed; no longer mischievous but intense as a spear that drives into the heart. “Because thou didst think thou hadst failed them?”

Fingolfin wanted to sink his hands into that lustrous hair, use it to drag Fëanor that last small distance against his mouth, into his arms.  
“Yes,” he said. “That was a great deal of it. I did not, however, wish to bed all of my people.”

“Thou art quite at fault, brother. I only work the most splendid of gems.” His words were teasing, but he was pressing closer, closer, and it was too much...Too late now for Fingolfin to wish he had never been obsessed with Fëanor, had never given himself so willingly.

“Thou art avoiding me.” His thumb rubbed slow circles over Fingolfin's suddenly bounding pulse. Fëanor knew how much he affected Fingolfin with just his presence. A glance from his eyes drove straight into Fingolfin's loins. A touch was inflammatory. The power balance had always tipped in Fëanor's favour. But too much was at stake now for Fingolfin to succumb. Turgon had angered him, but he had only spoken the truth. If it was coloured by his hatred of the Fëanorions, it was still true.

Turgon, going to build himself his own city as he had in Gondolin because he could not watch Fingolfin's ignominy, his public humiliation, when the truth became known.

_I would feel none, not for this, but I am not free and neither is Fëanor._

“I am merely busy,” he returned, and his voice sounded milk-calm.

Fingolfin had never been one to deal in rumourmongering, but Turgon's words had alerted him. A ruler had to be aware of his peoples' mood. No-one seemed surprised that Fëanor would show his approval of a four-way marriage that included Finrod's own brother, but they _were_ surprised at Fingolfin's sanctioning it, and they noticed that Fëanor flirted (There was no other word) with Fingolfin. Eyes that had trusted Fingolfin implicitly now held speculation.

Fingolfin had (very briefly) considered holding a meeting with his lords. And slamming the gauntlet of truth at their feet – but responsibility shackled him. It always had. He owed them more than that. They were his people. Not a one of them that had not followed him across the Helcaraxë. But he had failed them, ridden off on a suicide mission as mad as Fëanor's own (yet somehow considered more valiant. Why?) and left his bloody crown to weigh on Fingon's brow. He did not want to fail them again, and the truth would destroy their trust. Turgon was right: They would not accept incest. They would turn from him, and he would be damned before he saw that happen. He was the head of his house and would remain so. He had been bred to rule as much as Fëanor.

Fëanor nodded. “Now, tell me the truth.”

Fingolfin was burning up. He wanted the memory-wind of the Helcaraxë to blow through him and reduce the fire to ash, to freeze the heat of need and love and lust and jealousy. The Ice lay between them and it was not enough. It should be, but it was not. It never had been. And Fëanor knew it. He had always been able to read Fingolfin like a book.

But how to turn him away? Yet it must be done. If this continued, their closeness, Fëanor's assault upon his senses, Fingolfin _would_ surrender.

They had not bedded in Finrod's land, only because Tindómion's abrupt departure to Imladris had thrown the mood toward war and the threat of Angmar. Thence the visit had become to all intents and purposes an impromptu council which had been truncated with their swift return to Gaear Gwathluin. Fingolfin did not know whether to be glad or sorry. His desires remained unquenched and he knew that even were he and Fëanor together each day, they would never be quenched. That fire would not go out, only burn higher with fresh fuel.

Fëanor was not completely self-obsessed although those who did not know him well thought he was. Any vulnerability he possessed was rooted in his sons. He knew, for all Fingolfin's sidestepping and manoeuvring, that he had him. Any attempt to persuade him otherwise was surely doomed to failure.

 _I am like a hawk released to fly and then come back to the lure._  
  
_Thou must cease this now._ He pushed Fëanor away and rose.

 _Cease what?_ Fëanor's question was light, but his eyes watchful.

_People are talking. About us._

Fëanor lounged against the wall. _Yes?_ The word was a shrug. He had always been the subject of gossip.

_Our people deserve leaders they can respect._

_And Finrod's people do not respect him?_ Danger ground away at the thin edges of Fëanor's calm.

_They would have been willing to do anything to expiate their shame at turning away from him. And now he has bound them to him. The circumstances are not the same. Yet I doubt very much if all of them are happy._

Suddenly, fierily, Fëanor flung himself from his insouciant stance, crossed the space between them and caught Fingolfin's arms.  
_Let them talk. I have no time for petty-mindedness. After all we have been through...!_

Fingolfin did not try to move away. The grip on his biceps would leave bruises.  
Because _of all we have been through, thou art asking too much of them._

 _We are the Noldor,_ Fëanor flashed. _We reach toward the stars and into the very heart of the world. We are not children to flinch at truths._

_We are still healing, Fëanor._

The cruel grip loosed a little.

 _I will not see thee ostracised, I will not see people turn away from thee, and I will not suffer that fate either. And too,_ he added. _I do not trust thee._

Fëanor jerked at that. His fingers drove deeper. His eyes could have set the world on fire.  
_Trust me or no,_ his mind-voice came down like a sword's edge. _Thou art mine._

Fingolfin's veins were lit with burning ice. _I took the Blood-kiss –_

_Not that. No oath, no matter how ancient or sacred could even come close to what lies between us. Thou canst not turn from me, step back from me forever, Fingolfin._

Fingolfin remembered his youth, when Fëanor, so rarely seen, looked _through_ him, did not even acknowledge his existence because he was Indis' son. Fëanor was jealous, she had said, that Finwë should love any-one but him. Every-one knew the story: how Miriel had died bearing her son, and the Valar had permitted Finwë's second marriage. Fingolfin thought it illogical that Fëanor should hate him for such a reason but, as he grew older, a part of him could understand it.

When had it changed for Fëanor? Fingolfin had lusted after his brother from the time his body began maturing. Fëanor was the object of his private fantasies, the face he saw in his first solitary sexual explorations. He was Fingolfin's first _hunger,_ but when had Fëanor begun to see Fingolfin as desirable, as _his_?

“Half-brother in blood, full brother in heart,” he whispered into Fëanor's terrifying radiance. “And that I will be. I will stand beside thee, fight beside thee, kill for thee, and Eru knows I would die for thee. But I will not be more than a brother.” And, forcing a faint contempt into his words: “The High King of the Noldor should care more for his dignity than to pursue others like a love-struck youth.”

He had only seen that expression on Fëanor's face once, when his sons brought the news of Finwë's death to Taniquetil.

OooOooO


	61. ~ Shadows In The Bones ~

  


~ **Shadows In The Bones**  


~

 

~ Would they have killed one another? Fingolfin never knew. It was not a fight like any other, coloured with fire, pain, flesh impacting flesh. They had never truly fought before save once, in the Games in Valinor, and that had been for an avid audience. It had been competitive, turning into serious competition, but it had been nothing like this.

Fëanor's palms slammed out to hit Fingolfin in the chest. It would have hurled him backward had he not been prepared for it. The expressions that exploded in Fëanor's eyes could have manifested in only one way: physically. Fingolfin braced himself, surged in to the impact. For a moment, they glared at one another. Fëanor's eyes were like the fire of stars.

Fingolfin knew he had miscalculated badly, that he had less than a moment to control his half-brother, to draw him into a fight that would not end with one or both seriously injured, or more. They could not afford that, the Noldor could not afford it.

He could not remember, later, the details of the fight, save that it was like a dance. In battle, reflex took over. Fingolfin's body moved in the patterns of combat without thinking. He knew, from bruises that showed when he disrobed, that Fëanor struck him, and that he returned the kicks and blows but at the time he felt neither, his mind was entranced, reading Fëanor's body, his moves. There was an intense pleasure in witnessing it, in being part of it, discarding the armour he wore in the eyes of the world, and because he was playing Fëanor like a master. He had to. He knew just what Fëanor could do if he utterly lost control. The Noldor had suffered the backlash of that for too long. The fault this time lay with Fingolfin, and his own subconscious was no friend to him. Part of him had _wanted_ to see Fëanor thus, while his saner self knew he had to douse the fire.

He hurled himself forward in a wrestlers move that took them both crashing to the floor. Fëanor's skin burned radiantly through his thin shirt. The great mass of thick slippery hair had unwound from its braids and flooded across Fingolfin, mingling with his own. He rolled away, head over heels and came up, only for Fëanor to catch him as he was rising and, this time, bring him down.

Fingolfin exulted at bringing his half-brother to this passionate fury even as he knew it must be tempered. He realised, too, how _controlled_ Fëanor had truly been since his rebirth. Oh, there had been the odd flash, and more: Celegorm's rape, the night of _Nost-na-Lothion_ , when Orodreth had taken the Silmarillion, but _this_ Fëanor had reined in. He, like all of them, were too relieved to have new lives.  
  
Yet this was Fëanor at his most dangerous, the man whom had sworn the Oath that brought doom on the Noldor. Fingolfin remembered him standing in the Great Square of Tiron, sword uplifted to the black skies. He had been more beautiful than anything in Arda or beyond it. And more perilous. He still was.

Fëanor's mind was incandescent, curses spilling over into Fingolfin's. His long legs straddled Fingolfin's hips, and his eyes, through the massy fall of his hair might have been windows to some terrible and magnificent conflagration. They had always mirrored his soul. He was also hard as iron under his breeches, as was Fingolfin. They stared at one another, panting and Fëanor's pupils enlarged so that they almost consumed the flame and left obsidian darkness in which Fingolfin could see himself reflected.  
  
Devoured by the dark...but they had not been, though he had wondered how long they would have existed there in the Void were it not for the intervention.

He could have freed himself (he thought) with a brutal and ungentlemanly move, but blood already seeped from a cut at the corner of Fëanor's mouth and one cheek had darkened with a bruise. Fingolfin forced himself to lie quite still as his nerves unravelled and caught fire, staring across the breath that separated them into those dilated eyes, waiting for what would come next.

The moment stretched like wire. Fëanor's heartbeat slammed against his own. Fingolfin felt himself falling into those eyes, into a nothingness that was so reminiscent of the Everlasting Dark he fought against it, against the kiss that plundered his soul. It was with him as he fell, its heat held him, burning. There was nothing but the kiss. There was no light...  
  
And then there was. Stars bloomed, clustered, formed great wheels of luminosity and he saw into them to the suns and gas giants and small rocky planets, and then to one that shone blue and white then dappled into green and umber and the dark towers of mountains. His flight took him across an ocean and to a land where pale mansions grew on the shores of an inland sea and into one of them to a room where he and Fëanor kissed and fought, one act as passionate as the other. Fingolfin wanted to look at them forever...  
  
He gasped out of the vision to find his arms held in a firm grip, to Fingon's face, to his voice saying, “Father. _Father._ ” while across the room Maedhros was holding Fëanor, saying the same thing. Fëanor, as if his own consciousness had slapped him, was no longer fighting.  
  
“Fighting.” Disbelief edged Fingon's voice. “It was Turgon, was it not? He spoke to thee. He spoke to me, also.”

Fingolfin forced himself to look away from Fëanor. What in the Hells did his vision mean? That everything in his life returned to Fëanor?  
“Well,” he said, his breath coming hard through arousal as much as exertion. “He was not wrong.”

Fëanor threw back a cloud of tousled hair and _scorched_ from the room. Maedhros flashed a glance at Fingon and followed.  
  
“Father.” Fingon's voice dropped into gentleness. “I am so _sorry._ I want thee to be happy.”  
  
Fingolfin kissed his brow, folded a wry smile into his words.  
“I do not know that _he_ would make me happy, my dear.”

Fingon regarded him, dauntless, unflinching as he he had ever been.  
“I saw thee live without him.” He cupped a hand over a tender bruise on Fingolfin's jaw. “I wish...I wish thou hadst trusted me enough to speak with me then. I knew in Tirion.”

“I thought thou didst. But it is not something a man can easily speak of to his son. And, too, I did not want thee to see any...taint of wrongness in thy love for Maedhros.”  
  
“I never thought that was wrong.” Fingon's eyes glowed in the dark. Night had fallen and Fingolfin had not been conscious of it.  
“How is it with thine own people?” he asked.  
  
His son lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Those closest to me knew about Maedhros back then. I was not as discrete as thee.”  
  
“That does not answer my question,” Fingolfin said quietly. “But I have heard of no dissension.” He pushed back his hair, tried to restore it into some sort of order.

“Any-one who takes issue with it may leave with Turgon.” Fingon's voice gave no quarter. “After the lives we lived, the pain we endure, the deaths we died, father, _all_ of us, I will be damned again before I let anything come between us.”  
  
“Ah,” Fingolfin smiled his love and sorrow. “It is so clear for thee is it not?”

The returned smile was an exact copy. “Clear, yes, but it is not quite as I imagined it would be back then, when I still hoped to come to a time of peace, but perhaps it is more as I expected, given who we are.”  
  
Nost-na-Lothion? Tarnin Austa? _The blood that runs between us._  
  
“But thou art happy?” Fingolfin asked. So trite a word to use!

“Yes,” Fingon replied firmly. “And I want that for thee, and it can only be with him because when thou art in his company, thou art truly _alive._ What happened to bring thee to blows?”

Fingolfin told him. His son's black brows went up eloquently. “Eru, father. Coal on a fire. I know what thou art doing, but...why, why is it seen as so wrong?”  
  
“I suppose because it is uncommon to feel desire for those of close kinship,” Fingolfin shook his head. “I never felt that way about Finarfin. And the Valar deem it as wrong. We may have escaped them but old beliefs worm their way into us like a maggot into an apple. They are very hard to discard.”

“I wonder if it is all that uncommon,” Fingon mused. “I have spent longer than thee in the company of Fëanorions. To them love and desire are often the same thing. It is as if they are woven together so tightly that every emotion bleeds into another and all of them begin and end with passion.”  
  
“Fëanor is different in many ways. And his sons all carry a part of him.” Fingolfin flung an arm about his son's shoulder. “Come. I need to bathe and a cup of wine would not go amiss.”

Fingon smiled, but did not move. “Father, what art thou going to do?”

“Nothing. That is what I am going to do. If I trust him — which I cannot — I not only place myself in his hands but all of my people. I must not give him that power.”

His son's eyes were grave, luminous.  
“When we love some-one, we are always under their power, father.”

Fingolfin knew it. “I believed,” he said carefully. “that Fëanor knew he had me, fight it though I did. Now I am not sure.”

“Listen to me, father.” Fingon turned, gripped Fingolfin's shoulders. “It is very easy to believe Fëanor has no weaknesses. There are some who think he does not even love his sons but rather _owns_ them.”  
  
“He gave the Silmaril to Orodreth for their lives,” Fingolfin objected, feeling the injustice, though he knew now that the Silmarils had lost their hold on Fëanor long before. “He would have given his own for them.”

“I know that,” Fingon agreed. “I have observed how he is with them often enough, then and now. I see the love in him. It is well nigh obsessional because Fëanor cannot do anything by halves. He is whom he is. I see how he looks at them. I see how he look at _thee._ ”

The sudden flush burned across Fingolfin's cheeks.  
  
“He does not hide it quite as well as thee.”

The words would not come easily. He was too accustomed to concealment.  
“I think...I cannot allow myself to believe that,” he said at last. “Come. Leave this now, my dear.”

“Thou canst not just leave it, father. Is this to be thy life forever?”

Fingolfin leaned his brow against his son's. He felt hollow to the core at the thought.  
“Perhaps it will have to be.”  
  


OooOooO

Bainalph's warriors crossed the Hithaeglir by way of the River Langwell and almost immediately encountered a band of orcs moving West. They were great uruk, still bearing the Red Eye of Mordor, and they dragged coffles of Men, Women and children, pale haired folk whose settlements were scattered about the northern Anduin. Only the children still moaned, an endless sound like the distant cry of injured birds. The adults mouths were pressed taut over fear.

The Elves were fortunate: it was a still, almost windless autumn day, but what breeze there was blew their scent away from the orcs.

“We need one alive,” Bainalph murmured to Edenel who crouched at his side. “for questioning.”  
Edenel's uncanny eyes narrowed. “I suggest two.”

Bainalph frowned then, trusting Edenel implicitly, he nodded, raised two fingers to the warriors behind him.  
  
The armour of great uruk's was heavy, solid and the clash brutal, leaving two Elves dead and three injured. They took two prisoner, stripping them of armour, binding feet and hands. Bainalph approached one, holding his grief behind his teeth, letting cold fury rise. But not too much. He had to question it. It snarled at him, clashing its great teeth. One must be wary of orc teeth; they could take a hand off at the wrist. Slipping behind it, he placed the point of his dagger over a kidney.  
“We know you are from Carn Dûm.” The reek of its sweat was overpowering. He shook with the need to kill it. Every dead orc was one less in the world. But this was war and information was beyond price. “I have questions.”  
  
There came a hacking laugh. “Aren't you the pretty Elf-whore who did for Hrath? Saw you a few times. Seems you can't keep away.”

The knife bit delicately. Bainalph wanted to ram it home. “I want numbers: orcs and Men.”

The orc gasped wetly. Bainalph hated that even now, it slavered as if lusting. And he knew that battle did pour lust into the orcs so that they raped when they could.

“Why not try us and see?” it grated. “We'll make a new hole in you for our cocks. One wont be enough. He said you were good and tight. You ruined him, but there's plenty of us to take his place. ”

“Will you allow me?” Edenel's quiet voice contrasted eerily with the battle-markings on his face and the blood that slashed across him.  
Bainalph was familiar with the way he and his people fought, that single-minded killing grace. Now he was still, controlled and somehow more dangerous. He had been...different since Imladris. Bainalph could not explain how and certainly not why, but there was a restlessness to him that had not been there before. Bainalph had always thought of him as a frozen pool in the moonlight; there were depths beneath but they were hidden. Now they seemed to be coming to the surface.  
“It knows we will kill it.” Edenel stripped off his gloves. “It has nothing to lose. Or so it thinks.”

The uruk sneered, spat a wad of mucus.

“Very well.” Bainalph stepped away, cheeks hot at the filth of its words. His fingers ached on the dagger-hilt.  
  
“Send them all away,” Edenel murmured. “The questioning will not be...pleasant.” He called two of the _Ithiledhil_ to his side. “Amathon, Arassel.” There were no other orders. The clan had fought together too long to need any. “Watch the other.” Switching to Westron, he pointed his dagger at the second uruk. “You will witness.”

“Leave us,” Bainalph ordered his warriors.

The little dell was quiet now, red berries thick on the mountain ash, a thin hill-stream slipping among boulders. Blood soaking the earth. Bodies sprawled in violent death.

Edenel approached the uruk as purposefully as an oncoming storm. It flung its head back in defiance, eyes burning redly above bared fangs.

With a movement so fast it blurred, Edenel clamped his long fingers each side of the uruk's face and _hissed_. Ice runnelled Bainalph's blood at the savage _otherness_ of the sound. Then Edenel spoke and the words were no less shocking. The language sounded similar to Black Speech, which Bainalph had heard often enough spat from the mouths of orcs, but this was more finely wrought, ornate. One could imagine it carved from starless dark and fire and a terrible intelligence.

The orc howled; a sound so raw Bainalph almost flinched. It seemed to forget, in its terror, that its legs were bound and tried to run, falling heavily on its face. One of Edenel's boots came down with a brutal crack on its back. It screamed.

Edenel spoke again in that black-ice language, flipped the orc over with one foot. With a graceful, predatory movement he knelt on its chest, seeming to ignore the stink of voided faeces, stared into the terror-wide eyes. He set his dagger to its breast. A smile that chilled like like the Northern Wastes curved his mouth. His dagger slit the leather vest and he jerked it apart.

The uruk talked in a gush like a flooding river. When it ceased, gasping, Edenel surveyed it briefly. The look in his eyes made it less than any beast, less than nothing. Then he cut out its heart. He did it slowly, with as much unconcern as gutting a dead boar. The uruk's jaw opened with a dreadful gagging sound.  
  
“Scream into the pits of Night,” Edenel said in Westron as the dagger did its work. His voice dipped into antique formality. “Let thy soul be lost to the Void. Let thy Master eat what is left of thy foulness. Thou art _nothing_. Thou shalt be _nothing._ No hope, no mercy. _Nothing._ ”  
  
The orc was alive as Edenel lifted the heart in one hand. His head tilted as if in examination. He brought it close to his mouth, the action almost teasing, like the prelude to some unholy kiss.  
“Or shall I devour thee?” The organ pulsed in his long fingers. And, with utter contempt, calm as a glacier: “I — think — _not_.” And he pushed the heart into the uruk's silently screaming mouth.

His hands were drenched in blood when he rose, watching what was left of the creature. The expression on his face was utterly detached. Bainalph, his own heart pounding, watched the orc twitch like a smashed insect and grow still. It seemed to take a very long time. Edenel turned then, and went to the stream, washing his hands clean.

“What did you say to it?” Bainalph knew what orcs did to those they captured, had seen the atrocities they left in their wake, but though he had fought with Edenel, he had never before seen him do what he had done.  
  
The strange eyes were like luminous snow. He flicked water from his hands.  
“It was a Mordor uruk; I guessed it would know the language of its master,” he said. “It knew...enough. I said I would not eat its soul if it told us the truth. And I did not.”

“But...” His disbelief foundered into silence.  
  
“When they were Elves twisted and corrupted, we could essay it, but no longer. They have too long been their own race, melded with Elves, Men, beasts.” His lips lifted in acute distaste.  
  
“Edenel — ”

The touch to his face was moth-light. “Hush.”  
  
Bainalph caught his wrist.  
“Tell me,” he said. “You wanted me to see this. _Tell me._ ” There was pain at the root of that savage act and he had said once, and meant it, he would share Edenel's pain. If he could. If it were even possible.

“Yes.” Those strange eyes delved into his. “Later.”

They walked to the remaining uruk. It was roaring with fear, struggling, horror twisting its features. Amathon and Arassel watched it without expression, weapons drawn. They had not moved as their leader destroyed the other. Edenel cut the bonds about its legs then set his dagger at the wrist ties.  
“You have witnessed,” he said to it. “ _Go._ ”  
  
The uruk jerked as if struck by a whip, swung around and lumbered away. It fell once, rolling, heaved itself to its feet and ran on.

“It might not return to Angmar,” Bainalph warned. “They are not notably loyal to their masters. It might just flee into the wilds.”

“That one will return. It bears the fingerprints of darkness, as did the other.” Edenel sheathed his dagger. “The Mouth will know by now that Lindon is dangerous and soon he will know that these mountains are, also.” He looked up. “It guessed two thousand orcs, breeding fast. Not so many men. Perhaps sixty. And other things. All know, but few speak of what the Mouth does.”

“That is not so many,” Bainalph said.  
  
“There is more. Orcs were sent north. There are a people there, the Lossoth, who live in the lands about Forochel. They hunt whales and seals. We are closing off the South and West, so the Mouth looks North. That artery has to be closed.”  
  
  
They set up camp, sent out patrols and tended the released prisoners. Most of them were not injured, only tired and hungry. The orcs had not mistreated them, doubtless under orders to bring them unharmed and whole to Carn Dûm. They wanted to return to their homes and set up defences. There was no question of them leaving, seeking refuge in Esgaroth or Dale. They were a hardy and independent people, those who lived in the wilds. Bainalph said he would send warriors with them after they had rested.  
  
Later, when the sun had gone down, Edenel came to his tent. Bainalph regarded him in silence, this man whom had comforted him when Thranduil rejected him, accepted him into the dark and secret rites of his clan. Bainalph had guessed from that, and from the songs Edenel sang, what had happened to the _Ithiledhil_. Or so he had thought.  
  
He took a wineskin and poured two cups. Edenel sat down on the pelts, folding his longs legs. He tasted the wine and was silent for a long time. Bainalph waited.  
  
“Almost I was one of them.”

“— One of...them?”

“The legends are true. Morgoth — Melkor, he was named aforetime — captured Elves and...”  
  
Screams echoed in Bainalph's mind, torn from the throat of lost innocence, from souls whom had never known agony and did not understand why it was inflicted on them. He wanted to slam a door in the face of them, stop them somehow. They were unbearable. But he did not. His lungs cramped. The breath stopped in his throat. He knelt, curled his hands around the broad span of Edenel's shoulders.

“Utumno.” The word was forged out of iron. “Melkor's great fortress before the Valar destroyed it. I cannot tell you all that happened there, but we, the _Ithiledhil_ we should have been orcs. I do not know why we are not. But we were changed. I was not like this once. Like Beleg, I awoke beside the waters of Cuiviénen beside a brother, my twin. He was — is — called Finwë.”

Bainalph passed the name over his tongue, and then the force of the realisation hit him like a lightning stroke down his spine. He found himself staring, then lifted one hand to turn Edenel's face gently so that the lamplight glossed the high-cut bones of his face. The pale hair and eyes dragged the attention away from the foundations, but once he _looked..._ Abruptly, he sat back on his heels.  
“Eru.” His throat had dried.

Edenel continued, his voice quiet. “We were supposed to be his creatures, his warriors, his slaves, but...” Thick lashes dipped, hiding his eyes “Something happened. When we changed, we broke his hold on us. We did not answer his call, and will not.”

 _In our oldest memories all darkness, all fear came from the North on a North wind_ Edenel's words.  
  
Morgoth. Utumno.

Bainalph's voice returned, and then cracked clean through.  
“I cannot... how can I comprehend what you endured?” He moved forward, his arms locking around Edenel, holding him close, tight. “You helped me when Thranduil...and I can do nothing for you.” He closed his eyes against the white hair. Edenel's heart beat was strong and steady.  
  
“You have helped me. Do not doubt it. When we allow ourselves to remember, to _feel_ , our needs run...deep.”

Bainalph's skin burned. Deep did not even touch the feral hunger and anguish. He had almost been afraid the first time. The _Ithiledhil_ were so closed, so calm. (Save when they fought). When the Earth Rites unleashed their emotions they were terrifying. Glorious.

“You wonder why I choose now to tell you?” Edenel drew back to look at him.

He whispered, “Angmar?”  
  
“Partly. Or rather what it brought with it.” He was quiet for a moment. “There was just once when I thought it might be over. I felt Sauron pass from the world when the One Ring was destroyed. But nothing is ever ended.” His shoulders were a bar of steel. He slanted a sideways look. “You were shocked, at what I did to the orc.”  
  
“I have no pity for orcs,” Bainalph refuted. “But to see you do thus — ”  
  
“You think torture is orc-work.” Edenel finished for him. “That was nothing.” One hand brushed it away. The very lack of concern was chilling. “And what it said to you, that gutter talk...”  
  
Bainalph thought he would weep.  
  
“We thought them _weak._ We despised what we became but we despised them even more. We saw them fall from what they were.” He bowed his head. “We killed them in Utumno's pits as we were ordered, and it was so _good,_ so good to see them die. They had become abominations. But what had _we_ become?” A shudder racked his chest. He raised a hand as Bainalph touched him whispering he knew not what, something to comfort.  
“ _No._ It is not the time.” When he raised his head, his face held no more emotion than a beautiful carving fashioned in some long ago time by a master and then left behind, forgotten. “It is seeing them that has affected me so.”

“Seeing them?” And then he realised that Edenel was not speaking of orcs. “Your kin,” he said. “Tindómion. Gil-galad. Lómion. And the others will come: Fëanor and his sons, Fingolfin —”

“I tried not to look at them, not to speak to them.”

“ _Why_? You do not think they would reject you, surely?”

Edenel rose. The single lamp turned him into a creature of ice and snow.  
“I have spoken of this to Vanimórë,” he said quietly. “He thinks they would not. My twin and I shared a bond so deep...” His fingers sketched memories. “We knew one another's thoughts. Melkor broke that bond. I did not even know, until the Noldor returned, that he had killed Finwë.”  
  
Bainalph poured more wine, though there was not enough in all the vineyards of Dorwinion to salve this grief.  
“Did he know you were Finwë's brother?” he asked.  
  
“I assume so. We could hide nothing from him. I feel in some way as if the curse upon the Noldor, the House of Finwë began with me. How could they ever call me kin? I tried to keep away from them.” His mouth bent in something that was not a smile, filled with rue. “I never succeeded in that. I have seen many of them before, fought in the same battles. They drew me like a magnet draws metal, but now...I cannot not run from them.”  
  
“Edenel...”

“And then one night I heard Tindómion playing his harp. He was alone, and it was dark. He was as a fire in the night, but of course, he could not see me. I asked him to play the _Noldolantë._ , the lay his father created. I wanted him so badly.”  
  
“Yes,” Bainalph said softly, feeling again all that generous, incredible passion. “Oh, yes.”  
  
“I want them, all of them, to be a part of them, and it is more difficult now to resist.” He crossed his arms across his breast. Bainalph watched the next words forced out through his teeth. “And I keep imagining, dreaming of them knowing whom I am, and turning their backs on me.”  
  
Bainalph caught the hard fold of his arms, but Edenel would not look at him, jaw locked as if he wished those too-revealing words unsaid.

“How can you think that, when Lómion has been accepted? Edenel, look at me.” He took the hard, beautiful face in his hands and drew it toward him. “And Fëanor himself — his legend is infamous among our people, among the Noldor themselves. Yet he is High King. What have you done but survive and build a life for yourself when others would have died of despair?”  
  
“I was changed,” Edenel said through stiff lips, as if by rote, as if he had said the same thing to himself over and over through uncounted years. “I did not die. I let them...the Dark Gods take everything I was, I did such things as cannot be spoken of or forgiven. Yet I did not die. I did not know how.”

There were no words to reach this. Bainalph, ignoring protestations, pulled his head down and kissed him, not with lust or pity, but with his heart, with the love and friendship and trust and shared battles and compassion that spanned the years he had known this man. He wrapped his arms around Edenel's resisting body until it shuddered, and his own arms unlocked to return the embrace.

Bainalph did not know the Finwëions. He wished he did, to offer tangible hope. But he did not, only that the Sindar of the Greenwood spoke of the Fëanorions with loathing as murderers and madmen. Kinslayers. And it was true. Later, through Legolas and Elgalad, he had learned of Glorfindel and Tindómion, and come to see these last remaining scions of the House of Finwë in another light. And then there was his own experience with Tindómion...  
“They speak of the vaunting pride and madness of the Fëanorions,” he whispered. “And the shining valour of the House of Fingolfin. But they do not speak of kindness. Tindómion was kind to me when he had no reason to be. He did not know me and tried to shelter me from Thranduil, and took the time to speak to me, and he gave me what I needed. Magnificently.” His skin burned, his bones felt as if they were unravelling, but he locked himself together for Edenel. They could not comfort one another this night. Sex for both of them was a driving hunger both complex and simple, but never to be hurried, and not silent enough for this place, which had become a camp of war. Anyhow, what Edenel wanted was not something Bainalph could give.

“I wanted that from him.”

Bainalph eased away to look into his face. Edenel shook his head.  
“I believe he would have, but my messenger found him with Gil-galad. I had said that were he otherwise occupied not to disturb him. I would not trespass on what lies between those two. And then, the Balrog came with Eärendil.”  
  
From outside came noises: the quiet breeze, the music of water, the muted murmur of the camp.  
  
“What will you do?” Bainalph asked.

“I do not know. They pull me, my blood, but the _Ithiledhil_ are my family now. We are knit together.”

“Have they...never wanted to find their own people?”

Edenel drew himself slowly from the mutual embrace.  
“It is an unspoken need,” he said. “For long we lingered in the south of Beleriand. Healing. Or...something.” He shrugged. “We had some contact with other Elves who wandered, but little else. We felt Melkor's return, felt him call to us, and vowed never to hearken to him. Later, we learned of the Noldor. I wanted to see them, but we did not go north on my word alone. We all wanted to try and find those of our kin. We are not all Tatyar; we are of all the clans of the Elves.”  
  
“Did you find any-one?” Bainalph was not certain what he should ask, only that any question would cause pain, but Edenel would not have come here had he been wholly unwilling to speak.  
  
“Some things are not mine to tell. Doriath was closed to us by power. It was too similar to what we had known in Utumno, though defensive, not offensive. We had heard of the Grey Elves, Thingol's people. I knew him once. ” He crossed his arms again. Bainalph knew the gesture for a barrier against a past impossible to forget. He spoke very gently.  
“Did you know Beleg, too?”  
  
“I knew him. Not well. And to answer your unspoken question: I do not know if he remembers me. If he does, he has said nought. But perhaps not. They would not see a Finwëion. They simply see a man with white hair and eyes.”

“Those do draw the eye,” Bainalph said. “They are unusual, and beautiful.” Edenel almost laughed. “But no-one is expecting to see a Finwëion. You have the bones, though. It is very clear when I look. Were you and your brother identical?”  
  
Edenel shook his head. “Not identical no, but very alike. And there is a great similarity between all the Finwëions that stamps them as of one blood.”

Bainalph was silent a moment. “I think...” He hesitated again “I think that you should act as my messenger to and from Imladris.”

With a smile, Edenel said,”No.” Bainalph blinked, stared at him.  
“You are unhappy, my dear and damaged. I will not leave you. It is a kind thought, or I believe you mean it in kindness, but this cannot be forced. I refuse.”  
  
“Edenel...I can survive.”

“Yes,” he replied. “And so can I.”

OooOooO

After that, the mountains fell silent. Scouts reported Mount Gundabad was quiet, as was Mount Gram to the south-west. The northlands were uncannily empty.

Flurries of snow slapped against the tents. Winter had drawn its cruel white pall over Angmar, painted the mountains of the Hithaeglir white but the lower lands were clear, a muted green and brown in their cold sleep.

Bainalph brushed flakes of snow from his shoulders as he stepped into his tent. A brazier warmed it, although he was not chilled. The ice in his heart seemed to seep out, making him immune even when the winds poured down from the north.

Another message had come while he was patrolling. Messengers came regularly from Imladris or the Greenwood and Bainalph sent back reports, ignoring the orders that he return to the Wood for the Winter Solstice. He had not been back to Alphgarth since leaving it in late summer. His fief was in good hands and he was filled with dread that Thranduil would humiliate him or hurt him again. If that made him a coward, so be it. He did not trust the King.

This latest message was not from Thranduil but Gil-galad in Lindon, saying that they had met with some orc-activity in the forests, but now he would withdraw the Noldor back to their encampments for the winter.  
_We will continue to send out patrols and remain vigilant,_ he wrote. _Depending on what happens in the spring, we feel that a council in Imladris would be useful, and hope you will attend._

Under that Tindómion had written: _Know that we think of thee, Bainalph._  
  
It was a small, warm light.  
  
Sitting down on his bedroll, he pulled the lap-desk close and began to write back to Gil-galad.  
_We have seen nothing here since our first encounter, and there is good reason to believe that Gundabad is, if not deserted, close enough to it. The King will continue to guard this region, however, since orcs might make their way here, especially if they suffer starvation in Carn Dûm and Forochel is too difficult...But it is almost too quiet. I would be glad to attend a council if circumstances permit._ And Edenel would go with him. He hoped.  
  
He sealed the letter and called in a guard, who took it. A messenger would ride south in morning.  
  
The wind mourned. He lay back, drawing a fur coverlet over him and slept only to jerk awake to the sound of hooves, the jingle of harness, and voices raised. New warriors from the Wood, he thought, sitting up. Others would be returning home for the winter.  
  
Pushing the coverlet back, he gathered his hair in his hands and flung it over his shoulders as the tent flap snapped open letting in a swirl of snow. And Thranduil. Melting snowflakes clung to his hair, rendered into jewels by the light of the single lamp. He was clad in half-armour and his face was as cold as winter.

“Since you have elected to disobey my orders,” he said. “I have come to take you back.”

Bainalph was on his feet like a cat. “How dare you?”

“I am your King, in case you need reminding of the fact.”

“Then exile me,” Bainalph flared, as his stomach tangled into knots and his throat grew tight.

“I could not if I would,” the King replied with that unruffled calm that Bainalph hated. “You are bound to Alphgarth.” With a sudden move he caught Bainalph's arms and dragged him close. “And to me. I want you back. All of you. I want that young man, so full of innocence and desire, who came to me that night. I want him back.”  
  
“You destroyed him!” The hurt ripped him like orc's teeth but Thranduil's touch slid itself deeper, into the traitorous loins and his bones shook in their cradling flesh. _Take me,_ he wanted to gasp. _Make me forget, and never stop. Take me away from what I am._

But he still had a choice.  
“Leave me alone,” he whispered. “If you have any compunction, Thranduil. If you ever cared for me, leave me alone.”

The King's perfect face, porcelain under his battle markings, was a battleground of expressions that suddenly hardened like ice.  
“I have no compunction,” he said. “Not for this. You will come, one way or another.”

  


OooOooO

 


	62. ~ When The Veil Wears Thin ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first of two chapters dealing with a similar theme, that of being bound and claimed. Second chapter up soon.

  


**~ When The Veil Wears Thin ~**

 

Vanimórë abandoned the struggle with sleep that would not come and rose silently from his bed. A keen wind rattled the shutters, a storm coming in from the sea. Beyond the modest inn where Edric and his brothers lodged, Umbar hummed, less urgently in this night hour, but like all great cities it was never wholly quiet.

Elgalad lay upon a pallet, peaceful in sleep. Hired guards habitually slept in common rooms, or outside their employers' chamber, but Vanimórë required privacy, and the best the innkeep could offer was a loft over a store-room. It did not trouble Vanimórë whom had camped in mud and winter rains and snow. He had brought up a jug of wine, closed the trap door and he and Elgalad had settled in for the night. It had been a long journey.

Edric had been eager when Vanimórë arrived in Dale, hiding his relief and annoyance, annoyance that his 'Elven guards' had vanished, relieved that they had returned just in time to make an autumn journey. He had not, initially, wanted to head into the Eastern lands to return the hardbitten warriors Vanimórë brought with him, but the lure of new trade had swayed him and proved profitable. He was not a timid man, and was acquisitive besides.

Zeva and his folk had been returned to the Rayabi, their story received with both fascination and horror (and many an eye rolled white at Vanimórë). But they were accepted. Too many men had not come back from the war. Zeva's father, Jhitun had unabashedly wept and taken the young man away to his tent.

There was feasting that night, which Vanimórë watched from a distance, but the Uruk-hai joined despite the fact that they could not speak the language. No-one looked them askance and Dana's prediction that they would assimilate easily into the polyglot city of Umbar likewise proved true. In fact they had been hired in Gobel Ancalimon before ever reaching Umbar by a wealthy merchant out of Sudu Cull who was on his way home. Vanimórë had been teaching them Haradhic during the journey, and Lion and Vixen were quick to learn but he acted as their interpreter, raising their price as high as he knew the merchant would go. Skilled warriors could ask for high fees as guards, and get them.

“Good luck,” he had said as they parted. “I think thou wilt enjoy the life. This man is thine employer, not thy master. Thou wilt have wages and time to thyself. No-one is wholly free in this world, but it is better than what came before, no?”

Vixen's eyes were bright in the lamplight. She said, with the curt, awkward nervousness that he had come to find oddly endearing: “Ha! We'll get soft.” She punched Lion in the arm and drank from her wine-cup. Around them, the caravansary bustled. Vanimórë and Elgalad were both clad desert-fashion in veiled cloaks, and no-one paid them any heed.

“Thank you,” she said gruffly and bowed before whirling quickly away. Vanimórë lifted a bemused eyebrow at Lion.

“She likes you, my Lord. A little. And she's terrified of you, of course.”

Lion was cooler, more controlled than Vixen, and his experiences in Carn Dûm lay heavy on him. He seemed to have determinedly pulled himself from his roots, set his will upon becoming more like a Man, or at least more like those he had travelled with.  
  
“Thou wouldst have stayed in Imladris,” Vanimórë stated.

“There was no place for us.” Lion's yellow eyes narrowed on a distant point. “But yes, I would like to see that bastard brought down. I came south for them.” He nodded toward Vixen and Ox. “I took them into Carn Dûm. There's no harm in Ox for all his size, and Vixen deserved more. She would have stayed with me if I had decided to remain — and were we permitted; she's loyal, but there would be danger in it, and more for her, I think. You see her now. She is relieved. There was too much sorcery in Carn Dum, and too much power in Imladris. It would have changed us. It's not a cup from which we should drink. And there is hate. I _am_ Uruk-hai.” His incisors showed. “I felt the Elves hate for us, and felt it myself, for them. It's in my blood.”

Vanimórë regarded him. “And dost thou hate me? Thou hast hid it well.”

“No,” the other said thoughtfully. “You, I might follow.”  
  
"Why?”

“Because...you look like a man who is going to conquer the world.”

Vanimórë laughed. “Not for a while. I have a contract with Edric for a few years.” He had observed the Uruk-hai closely on the journey, and his reflexive, deep-rooted hate had faded a little. There was no fuel for it to feed on, not with those three. “I am going to make him a very rich man. But if we should ever meet again, who knows?”

  
And so they had parted ways, Edric and his wagons going on to Umbar where Vanimórë now stood watching Elgalad sleep. He leaned his brow against the rough wood of the wall. Somewhere, in the rising wind, a loose shutter banged, repetitively, maddeningly.

There was a dryness in him, a sense of something parched, leached of life. He knew what it was, the source of it, and the reason behind it. He had experienced it before both in Angmar and Sud Sicanna when Dana and her women had drained him: the death of desire.

It had begun not long after his leaving Imladris, borne on the rising tide of Dana's importunities. At first they had been cajoling, with that ever-present undercurrent of condescension he had always resented but tucked under his bland, answering smiles like a thorn. It had not been worth mentioning, something he came to regard as simply how she was. Yet now it rubbed like a file on raw skin.

He did not respond to her. If he had been able to withstand Elgalad's loving pleas for thousands of years, he could easily resist Dana. He examined her words at their last meeting, liking none of them, and peeled away her glamour like flaking paint to find out what lay beneath. As if in retaliation, the dryness sapped him. He moved through the days and nights on reflex and, silently, fought to recover the stolen piece of himself. Now, when Dana's voice stole into his mind, humid and fragrant as the southern jungles, promising an antidote to his emasculation, he straightened, mouth tight.  
  
 _We must speak plainly,_ she said.

_Thou art persistent,_ he allowed. _But I have no desire to speak with thee. That door is closed._

_You sulk like a boy. There is more at stake here than your petty imagination can conceive._

_There always is._ And he was tired of it.

_Listen to me, for I wish to speak of Melkor._ She was keeping a leash on her irritation, but he felt it simmering through and under her words. _He will return and when that time comes, I must defeat him._

_Good luck. Though you may have to wait your turn._

_You dare to mock me?_ The leash stretched taut.

He slapped a hand against his thigh. _What? No, not really. It will be a cataclysmic battle and many will fight him. But why art thou bringing this up now? Because of Angmar? I truly doubt Melkor would try to leave the Void at this time. He would need a vessel strong enough to hold him._ Taking a few steps across the room, he gazed down at Elgalad lying in a spill of silver hair. _I suppose I should thank thee for slaughtering my desires. At least if I do not have him, I will not harm him. But it will not last, Dana. I clawed my sexuality back from something far more powerful than thee._

_Melkor is not more powerful than I!_

_I did not mean him. Dost thou not think that my own mind, my hatred, my guilt and shame were not strong enough to neuter me? They were — far more than any curse thou couldst lay upon me. Now, I will ask thee politely to leave me alone. Thou hast made thy point: If I turn away from thee thou wilt have thy revenge. So be it. I want nothing further to do with thee, and thou knowest why: Thou wert aware of Túrin's abuse and did nothing. Thou didst order the man who did it not be touched, for what reason I know not—_

_You are still chewing on that?_ Dana interrupted irritably. _I drove Lorh to Carn Dûm. Malantur worked on him. He is half-dead, a mindless ghoul. A revenant of something that once lived. Is that punishment enough?_

Yes, he supposed it was, though he did not see the point. But, _Thou didst say he was one of the tipping points, part of Túrin's story. That his abuse might be part of the pattern, and that Túrin, in his first life, felt it was unmanly to lie with Beleg._

_And so he did,_

_But what in the Hells has it to do with thee?_ Then he stopped. Like monumental stone slabs falling into a pattern he saw it. She had given him all the clues herself. _Túrin. Thou doth want him for thyself. Because..._ Dagor Dagorath. Túrin would meet Melkor and avenge the doom laid upon his family. Or so the legends said.

Túrin. Melkor. The Last Battle. Dana too would face Melkor. He had been right, in Imladris when he wondered if her thoughts revolved around the darkest god.

_If Melkor defeats me,_ she said into his flash of anger. _He will rule Arda._

_Defeats thee? Didst thou not just say that he was not more powerful than thee?_

There was a sudden squall of rain like pebbles against the shutters. A slap of wind buffeted the building.

_I have to be sure. Túrin will face him; it is written in him. His vow has driven deep into the world, bent fate to his will._

_Yes it has,_ Vanimórë returned grimly. _But there is no reason for thee to use him._

_Vanimórë, I must have champions. And I have chosen them._

He drove his fingers into his hair.

_And you are one of them._

_Not this again._ He dropped his hands, leaned against the wall. _I will stand against Melkor of course, but I will not serve thee. In any way. Not any-more._

Lightning burned white across the sky, piercing the loose shutters, limning them in fire. The backlash of thunder roused Elgalad from his sleep. Vanimórë saw him rise from the narrow cot. He seemed to trail white light like wings as he walked across to Vanimórë, drew him into an embrace. The fall of his hair was cool silk.

_I_ chose _you._ Dana's voice rode the storm. _And only I can help you. You say you will meet Melkor in battle, but he will subsume you. He cannot allow you to live, in any form, not even as a spirit in the Void._

His arms tightened around Elgalad. The ice of terror made his very bones feel brittle, but she told him nothing new. When Melkor returned he would naturally seek to destroy Vanimórë.  
  
 _No doubt,_ he said stiffly.

_Listen: Melkor begot me. I was born out of his rape of the Earth, out of fire and smoke, out of ice and mountains forced from the skin of the world, from the blood of oceans tipped from their beds. I am his daughter, his bride, his Queen. He wanted the world. And I could have given it to him. In his pride, he rejected me._  
  
In the storm he heard the breaking of Arda. Powers bestrode the world and made war upon its bones. But it was not that which sickened him.

_So nothing of what thou didst show me in Sud Sicanna was true. Nothing thou hast told me is truth._

She had told him the opposite: that she had rejected Melkor, and that he had destroyed her for it. She had made Vanimórë pity her, drawn a veil of lies over him, and all the time her mind was set upon Melkor, father/husband/consort. Of course. She might have kept him ignorant for all the Ages had he not turned from her.

_I told you what I had to, to ensure you would wake me._ A cold smile tilted into the words. _You would have done the same. I had waited for you for a very long time, Vanimórë. We all use what tools we have._

He said, furious: _Arda is not thine to give. To any-one. It is the home of the Children. Thou wert born of it, but thou art not its ruler, any more than Melkor was, or thought he was._  
  
 _Arda is_ mine. _I came from it and poured my spirit into it when he destroyed me. Melkor is my sire and the Earth my mother._

Deliberately, Vanimórë loosed his grip upon Elgalad, knowing his fingers had driven to the bone. He brushed his fingers down the beautiful line of cheek and jaw. The clear eyes caught and held light.  
“It is all right,” he murmured. _I do not care whom thou art, Dana._

_Yes, you do. I have bound you, Dark Prince._

His blood shocked with revulsion.  
 _So did they bind me, Melkor, Sauron. And if thou art hoping for Melkor's destruction, I do not believe he_ can _be destroyed._

There was a gathered breath in the storm.  
 _I said defeat him, not destroy. He is mine. He will come to know that._ She walked into the room on a wave of incense, heavy red robes falling about her feet. She must have come from the deeps of her temple in Sud Sicanna. Elgalad blinked once, slid a hand to Vanimórë's shoulder.

“Elgalad. My dear.” She smiled, traced her fingers down his cheek in an exact copy of Vanimórë's caress. She did that, walked into peoples lives as if she had the right. A thought intruded itself and Vanimórë snapped it to Glorfindel, far in the East.  
 _I think my bringing Dana to New Cuiviénen was appallingly wrong. And she has Orodreth in her temple. Go and get him out while she is here._ He felt Glorfindel's sun-fire burn up, a mental surge of power, the question behind it, and flung back the doors of his mind. _I want thee to see and hear this._ He sent out arrows of thought to Imladris and Lindon, to Fëanor and the Noldor in the East, to the Elves of the Greenwood. He had no time for anything more.

Dana's voice delved into earth-deep stone: “I claimed you before you were born.” Her fingers stroked down to Elgalad's jaw and gripped it. Vanimórë heard the warning chimes in the action. Elgalad's face was hard, motionless as chiselled ice.

“You may be a god,” she said. “but without me, you will be nothing. You need only weaken Melkor. Once he is weakened, I will bind him to me. I will chain him at my feet and drink the ichor from his veins and transmute it, breaking his power over Arda forever. I shall make the world anew.”

“I see,” Vanimórë spoke slowly, watching her. “And then?”  
  
“And then Arda shall become what it should have been.” She loosed her hold on Elgalad, spread her fingers as if conjuring a vision. Vanimórë saw nothing but darkness. “I will give you your father, when I have finished with him, and you may enact your revenge upon him. You are my chosen. My first consort.”  
  
“No.” He met her widening eyes, lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug.  
“Thou hast used a child to further thine own ambitions. Thou must have known it is not a thing I would forgive. Thou hast seen what I do to those who harm children. And where is Túrin in this wonderful future? Does he not deserve to be thy consort also?”

She flung her head back. Impatience was writ clear in her face, as if he was a dull child who could not grasp a simple concept. “I am the Mother of the Earth; you are all my consorts. And this is more, far more than one boy's pain! This is my _world._ ”  
  
Vanimórë felt Elgalad's hand, warm and strong, like a brace. One boy's pain.  
“No.”

“You do not have a choice.” Dana wrapped the words around him like a chain forged of lead.

“Let me say it again: No. I will fight Melkor, that is inevitable, but I will not fight for _thee,_ or to make thee Queen of the World. The world does not need any more tyrants. And I am damned sure I will never be thy consort.” Which, he knew well, would mean her worshipper, her tool, her toy, no different to Sauron save his father had not required worship.

“Oh, you will.” She flung away and poured herself wine from the table. “You need me, Vanimórë. You will have nothing else to love in the end. You have no choice and if you were not as great a fool as Melkor you would see it. But you are, despite that, not one to flinch from the truth, so let me give it to you.” She sipped, grimaced. The wine was thin and sour; Vanimórë did not have the coin to waste on fine wines. He found it morbidly amusing.  
“You will always want too much, take too much.” She gestured with the cup. “You will try to fill the emptiness inside you and even if you regain your desires, if you possess Elgalad—” She smiled blindingly at him. His expression did not change. “you will kill him. And no-one else will love you. Oh, there are a few strong enough to bed with you, but as you begin to fall toward darkness — and you will, _Beautiful Darkness_ — they will come to hate and fear you.” Her voice ground into him like a carven prophecy. And Vanimórë accepted it, inclined his head in agreement. He could not argue with truth.

But it seemed Elgalad could.  
“No,” He took a step toward her. “He is loved, and not only by me. Thou art giving him words birthed in his own mind: that no-one will love him or want him. It is what he himself believes, and it is false and thou knowest it.” There was no hint of a stammer in his voice, no deference, certainly no fear. A great uprush of tenderness rose in Vanimórë's heart, banished the coldness that Dana had laid on his soul like a millstone.

The smile melted from her lips.  
“You do not know him. You mistake gratitude for love. He raised you from birth, he mentored you. He loved you because there was nothing else in his life to love, and you think you love him.” She snapped her fingers as if dismissing the very idea. “Has he told you that he willingly gave himself to orcs and even Fell-wolves? And he was made to service them, also. Sauron had that much power over his body. Do you really want his cock inside you, knowing where it has been, or to fuck him, knowing that orcs and beasts have been there before you?”

Vanimórë clenched his hands. She would see nothing in his face. He was a master at concealing what he felt, for all the good it was when Sauron, and Melkor before him could see clear into his mind. No doubt Dana could also, to the sickness and shame that roiled in his gut.

He received a look from Elgalad that almost stopped his heart. It poured balm into his soul, enclosed him with love, held him close, assured him that he was stainless, that his life had left no mark. Lies, but sweet ones. He was so _tired_. He wanted to fall into that love, that comfort, hold it to the depths of his need until the world fell into its last darkness.

Dana's eyes narrowed acutely on his face. She would pick up the scent of his weakness like a bitch fox. He willed it away (again), and stared back at her, unblinking.

“How _dare_ thee speak thus of his usage?” Elgalad's eyes burned silver-white. It seemed as if the lightning had entered the room, blazed within him. “I have seen; he showed me to make me flee from me. He was _raped_ , he was _forced_. ”

“Elgalad,” Vanimórë said quickly. “it is nothing—”  
  
The slim fingers tightened on his shoulder.  
“I desire him,” Elgalad said with perfect passion shaped into love. It hurt Vanimórë in a way far different to Dana's words. “I desire all that he is, his kindness, his compassion, his pride, his skills, his presence, his beauty, oh, Eru! I look at him and the world is gone; nothing exists except him. The sorrow he can scarce bear to show me, the passion he keeps on so tight a rein. For all those reasons, and more, I _want_ him.”

“He does not desire you,” she told him, with feigned sorrow. “And that is my gift to you, fool.”

Elgalad turned his head at that, eyes searching Vanimórë's. Who lifted a hand.  
“She has...killed my sexual needs,” he said as if it did not matter. “It has happened before, in Sud Sicanna and in Angband. They will return whether she wills it or no.”

“Are you so sure of that?” Dana asked mockingly. “I allowed you to recover it the last time, but I do not think—”

“Even if he could never physically love me,” Elgalad cut across her, and the white fury in eyes and voice was startling. “I would still love him. I was born for him.” His hand moved slowly down Vanimórë's tense back. “No power on Arda or beyond it can change that.”  
  
The wind sluiced, wrenching at the walls. Without warning, lips gone thin, Dana hurled the empty goblet at Vanimórë. He felt it stir his hair as he ducked aside.

“So now at last I see thee.” He would not allow emotion to colour the words. “Everything thou hast done has been a grand stratagem. Thou hast called me a fool and I am indeed one, not to have seen it. Thine pretence at affection, approval, all of it. From the first thou hast used me and fed it me on a bed of silk and honey. In Sud Sicanna I was raped. Many times, and lastly by thee. Thou didst laugh, told me there was always pain in birth. But whose was the pain? Not thine. I had agreed to help thee without knowing what it would entail, and thou didst _know_ I would permit a woman license that I would not permit a man. After, when the mood was on thee, thou wouldst come to me for sex. Never in Mordor, though. Why? Was it because Sauron would see straight through thee?” She started to speak and he cut across it. “Thou didst know enough to rouse me and I made sure to give thee pleasure. I thought it was my duty— ”

“Of course it was your duty!” The air about her occluded in a roiling mist. “You owe me your very existence. Whom do you think dreamed you, before ever Sauron did, who put it into his mind that he should sire a son?” She spread her hands, tilted a brow.  
  
Vanimórë felt as if the solid boards under his feet were splintering to drop him into a madness of confusion. He clawed himself out wishing for a sick, awful heartbeat that he could ask his father. He could imagine the arrogant, feline smile of amusement before Sauron took Dana apart piece by piece, ripping her attempts at manipulation into shreds.

“No,” he said. “Thou art lying, and poorly. And even were it were true, it makes no difference, save it would be another atrocity to place at thy feet: the rape and torment of the woman who bore me. Nothing binds me to thee. I owe thee nought.”

Her nostrils flared. “I am your _purpose_ in this world!” She hammered the words into him like nails. “Otherwise, you have none. The Elves do not accept you. You are not welcome in New Cuiviénen, nor in Imladris. Nor anywhere. You may push yourself into their affairs, but they will never truly want thee. Look at yourself! Once Sauron was gone you became this: a wanderer, a nobody, a nothing.”

“Do not listen to her!”

_Stay out of this, my dear._.  
“No doubt thou art right,” he said easily, watching her. “So, thou wouldst tell me that I am nothing without thee, that one day Melkor will return and consume me — unless I join with thee.”

“I can shield you from him.” The calmness of his voice must have convinced her that he was about to submit. She had no real understanding, he thought. Whatever she had done since her awakening, moving through the world for thousands of years, she had not learned. Certainly she had learned nothing about him.  
  
“You are in error,” she answered his thoughts, eyes narrowing. “I learned. I learned that Mortals _want_ : good harvests, rain in season, dry weather, fertile bodies, healthy babies, rich hunting. Their wants never cease.”  
  
“Knowest thou why humanity worships their gods and goddesses?” He answered the rhetorical question: “From fear. Or because they want something in return. Life is hard for Mortals. Of course they want! If thou art searching for unconditional love, try being unconditionally loving. At least give _something_.”

“I gave myself to the Earth. That is enough. And I know also what _you_ are.”

“Thou hast already told me what I am: nothing without thee, apparently.”

The scent of incense swept around him as she pressed herself close, something too-sweet, sickly, a rot of attar. She passed her tongue over her lips. “Come now, we have known each other for too long to argue, and you will admit that if it is a choice between me and Melkor, you must choose me.” Her tone was reasonable. “A god must see the long game, which is hard for you who trod one day at a time for sanity's sake. But you will learn. I can give you everything, Vanimórë. I can give you back your desires.” Her lips quirked. “You may control yourself most of the time, and especially around this one—” She nodded to Elgalad. “But you _burn_. You are an eroticist, dear boy. Sex is all through you, the way you walk, carry yourself. Do you really want to shrivel into dryness, feeling nothing?”  
  
“We both know this is not about sex, Dana. It is about power. Thy power over me, over Melkor, over Arda. It always has been has it not? The game thou didst play with me was simply to assure thyself that I never forget thee. That I was still in the web.”

She looked amused, shrugged. “The game,” she said. “was pleasurable. Your life was empty, Vanimórë. It is empty now. You were a slave, a warrior and a whore. Now you drift, anchorless. Does it not disgust you to realise that your father was your north star?”

Something tore deep inside him. He did not speak.

“But I give you a true purpose, a destiny to fulfil, and your new life will not be barren.” Her eyes gleamed redly. “I will fulfil you. I will give you your sister, your mother—”

No. Her presumption was like flame against the raw skin of his wounds.  
“Do not dare to involve them! Bloody _gods_!” If there were any mercy in the world, his mother would not remember the horror of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. And his sister. _Vanya_. Of her, he could not bear to think; it had always ignited a scream within him, one that he was afraid would never stop. He imagined her in Valinor, even after his hope in the Valar had tumbled down. There must be some justice, some pity there for Vanya, whom had somehow retained her innocence until he murdered her. He could face anything but the memory of that. Of her. Shining in the darkness, love in her eyes, and absolute trust. _Vanya_ His mind ran into a haze of _painshameguilthorror_ when he thought of her, and so he did not. Had never been able to.

Through the fire, he heard Glorfindel say, strained and as enraged as he: _I have Orodreth. Vanimórë. He is...Eru...! Dost thou need aid?_

_No. Seal New Cuiviénen against her. I know she is all through the world, or so she says! but do what thou cast. I will essay to do the same to Imladris._

Dana had taken three steps back at his outburst; he covered the space between them in one.  
“If thou doth even try to come near them I will not rest until I have put thee back into the Earth whence Melkor sent thee!”

Her mouth hung open. For a moment she looked shocked, then closed her lips with a snap of pearly teeth.  
“Nothing in your life has prepared you for the agony and despair that await you if you refuse me.” There was death in her words, an ending of any hopes he might have had. “I have seen it. You will be broken and devoured. There will be nothing of you left. Nothing.”

He knew, he _knew_ , and cast the fear of it away before it could emasculate him as she had.  
“And thou wilt not come near Túrin. Beleg's was the last name on his lips as he died, not thine. Now, get hence!”

“You do not have the power to make me, _godling_ ”

He raised his brows. “Shall we see, here and now, just how much power Eru granted me? Thou didst choose me, thou sayest, but so did he.” And there was more power almost at his fingertips if he wanted to reach for it, reach into that no-place where his father and Melkor and thousands of other banished spirits waited...He felt a sudden, fierce eagerness, diamond-hard and familiar. Sauron was observing him, close, close. Appalled at his own reaction to it, Vanimórë crushed the temptation down.

She bared her teeth. “I will always come back, Vanimórë, like the spring grass. I am everywhere. You cannot banish me.”

He choked down his wrath, formed his voice into steel.  
“Thou hast played me, patronised me and I told myself it was thy due, thy right. I serviced thee like the good whore I am and thou didst always ensure I knew what a _privilege_ it was. And, more fool me, I thought it was. I woke thee, I gave the a temple. Thou wert free to walk the world, and I thought thou wouldst, touching lives, making them at least a little better. There was some comfort in that thought. But what hast thou done, truly?”

“Save a woman from childbed sickness and she dies of fever. Save one from rape and she is crushed under the wheels of a cart. And do they thank me? Perhaps one quick, gabbled prayer, a little ale or wine tipped onto the earth. A candle lit until it burns out and their gratitude with it. And then it begins again, the wanting, the asking. A pathetic, needy, greedy race.” Her mouth curled down in contempt.

“Thou speakest of thyself,” Vanimórë told her. He had never refused her until Imladris. She had chosen to see his acquiescence as an invitation, and the foundation of her plans for him. She had misread him. For all she appeared to know him (or rather _informed him_ that she knew him) she had erred. Or perhaps she decided that his rules or morality did not apply to her, a goddess with her eyes set upon the world.

“And what are _you_?” she demanded, lunging toward him.

“I know exactly what I am. Now get thee gone. I refuse thee, I deny thee. I will walk into the dark if that is my fate, and become _nothing_. So be it. But I will not be bound to _thee._ And I will not see this world fall into thy hands. Is that clear enough? And if thou doth even _think_ of hurting Elgalad, I _will bury thee under the altar in the Great Temple._ ”

She screamed at him, an ululation that shook the aether, skirled into the storm-wind outside. Her fingers hooked, and she sprang. He caught her wrists, wrenched her forward even as he stepped back and, spun, releasing her to crash against the wall.  
“No more!” he shouted.  
  
“I will feed those words back to you with your own blood, son of Sauron.” She was flickering from one body to another and he wondered distantly if any of them were truly her own. Her muscles tensed. “And it is not I who will murder Elgalad.”

_**Get thee gone!** _

The command struck through Vanimórë's body like a lance. It was both familiar and strange, tonal, as if several voices spoke in harmony and with absolute, breathtaking authority. Dana staggered, her body unravelling into a dark ghost-shape. And then, with a crack of imploding air, she vanished as if sucked away.

Elgalad was holding him in a steely embrace. He stiffened his knees against collapse, bent his head against the silver hair.

“She lied,” Elgalad said stern as a sword. He moved back and cupped Vanimórë's face in his hands. “She lied about thee, and to thee.”

Perhaps. But many of her words had been true.  
“Of course,” he said, smiling.

Elgalad's face changed. “Do not pretend it does not matter. Do not shut thyself away from me.”

“I does not matter, my dear, not truly. I will not let her have the world, no more than I would let Melkor have it. I will fight both of them if I have to.”  
  
“And thou wilt not be alone.”

But he thought he would be. Completely, utterly alone.  
  


OooOooO

 


	63. ~ Threads Of Darkness, Gleams Of Gold ~

 

**~ Threads Of Darkness, Gleams Of Gold~**

  
Bainalph jerked back. The cobweb of cracks across his soul spread wider, deeper. He said as firmly as he could: “I will not come. I do not care what binds us, Thranduil. Between us now matters are too _twisted._ ”

The winter-blue eyes glided over him like ice.  
“You have to give me a chance to make requital, Bainalph.”

He pushed back his hair with a hand that trembled as his voice had not.  
“I do not have to. And I cannot. Do you want to kill me?”

Shock flared like light across the King's face.  
“Do not be stupid. You are no fool.”

“I _was_ a fool,” Bainalph threw at him. “But you cannot just _decide_ you want me after treating me like filth for most of my life.” He spun on his heel, turned back. “I _hate_ myself for still wanting you, for allowing you to define my life!” He slammed his palm against his chest. “But I have a choice. I am not a thrall to you, Thranduil. We may be bound forever, but I _not your slave._ ”

“And yet,” the King murmured into his defiance. “in the bedroom, you would like to be.”

Bainalph felt his body soften, pliant as silk. He staggered, hit straight in the loins by the images the words evoked. Thranduil caught him, wrapped him close.  
“I am relieving you and your warriors until the spring,” he said uncompromisingly. “No. Listen to me: You are soul sick. I did not realise how much until now.”

He had been soul-sick for a long time, Bainalph thought, his breath coming short with anger and arousal. Thranduil's arms tightened. Bainalph, his heart cracking under the pressure, held himself stiffly within them.  
“That lies at my door,” the King continued, unrelenting. “But you have also not given yourself time to heal from Carn Dûm. I want you in Alpgarth for your own good.” He took Bainalph's face between his gauntleted hands and lifted it. His eyes softened, and that was somehow unbearable. “Look at you, cream and white and so _beautiful._ I will not let you sicken further.”

Bainalph moistened his lips, looked up under his lashes, unconscious actions that he now realised might be misconstrued as invitation. He said quickly, shakily, “You could seduce me now, and it would be so easy for you! I would not resist long and you know it, but I would lose what little respect I have for myself ever after, and all the time I would be looking at you waiting to see the contempt in your eyes, the hatred— ”

“I — ” Thranduil bit off whatever he had been about to say. Then his voice changed entirely. “Then I will have to prove to you that you are wrong, Bainalph Cualphion.”

It almost drove Bainalph to his knees; it was the voice of Thranduil from out of the past.  
  
“You chose me, that night. In all your ravishing innocence you chose me, and we summoned a storm. You showed me what I had wanted all my life. You bound me. _Yours_ was the power. I hated it, resisted it, drove you as far from me as I could because I could not trust myself with you, but I could never escape you.” He drew one of his gauntlets off and, gentle as if handling an injured bird, ran his fingers over Bainalph's lips. “You hallowed that night, made it sacred, and I...punished you for it. Wrongly.”

“D-do not say any more.” His voice was husky, strengthless. “I release you.”

The King half-smiled. “You cannot. Bonds forged by power are not so easily broken.”

Bainalph pulled himself away. He was shaking badly, and mostly from desire.  
“Do not touch me.”  
  
Raising both hands, Thranduil acceded. “I should. I want to, but I can see that now is not the time. I did not come here to...trouble you, but to take you home.” Slowly he lowered his hands. “For the winter. In the spring I want you in Imladris. You need time. You need healing. You need to be in Alphgarth.”

“You think I cannot do this?” Bainalph demanded. “How dare you! Soul-sick or no, I can still fight and command my warriors.”

“I know you can, but you cannot see what I — and every-one else — can see in you.”

“ And how do you suggest I should heal? Winter approaches, and the Night of the Winter King.” When the King took any-one he chose between darkness and dawn. As Prince of Alphgarth, Bainalph too enacted those rites, but he preferred the submission of the _Aran Laer_. Often, he chose a proxy, went to the _Ithiledhil_ for that night. “Will you order me to come to you?”

Thranduil looked around, picked up a flagon of wine and a cup and poured. He held it out. “If I thought it would help with your healing, I would. But no. This Midwinter, Níniwen shall take my place.”

After a moments hesitation, Bainlaph took the wine, and drank. It was not necessary for the King to participate in the Earth Rites every year. Once it was done the binding held forever, but there had never been a season when they were not celebrated, not since Bainalph was young. The call was too powerful to resist; it took the Elves like a storm in the blood. He clenched his hands around the cup, asked, “Why?”

A little frown crossed Thranduil's smooth brow.  
“Because, as the Queen, she too should form a binding with the forest. I did not need to tell her what I had done. She felt it in me before we ever came to the Greenwood. It is part of her heritage, too. She proposed it, and I agreed.” There must have been a strange expression in Bainalph's eyes because he continued: “The life we lived was wholly unnatural to us. _This_ one will not be. Níniwen is Silvan.”

“You imposed a marriage of strict monogamy and yes, of course it is unnatural, but do you think she will so easily fall into this new life?” Bainalph did not believe it. “Does she know about me?”

Thranduil's expression did not change. “She sensed the binding. There is nothing I could do about it, even if I wanted to. And I do not. My bindings to the Wood, to you, my marriage — they cannot be dissolved. What the Queen and I spoke of is private, but that she understands. And she need this. When she was reborn she was sent to Tol Eressëa. There were very few of her own people there, and they were from ancient times. She said it was not living, it was a kind of terrible imprisonment.”

Bainalph wrapped his arms around his body. From outside came the sound of tents being erected, soft orders, horses stamping. The wind, thin and cold, snapped at the pennon above the pavilion with the sound of a great bird alighting. He closed his eyes.

“Bainalph,” the King said more softly. “If I have to command you to come home, I will. You need the roots of Alphgarth and peace.”

“And will you give me peace?” he asked into the dark behind his eyelids. Heard the silence.

“I want to heal you.” The heat in the words sprang Bainalph's eyes wide. “I want to give you that night back, over and over. Yes, I could take you now, but you do not trust me, and what I see in you...I do not want to hurt you further.”

An uprush of anger burnt his tongue. He cried, not caring who overheard: “You made me want to _die_. You took away my joy in life. If not for Edenel and the _Ithiledhil_ I would have been empty, a hollow reed with the wind blowing through it, tuneless.” He despised himself for admitting his weakness, but worse than that, worse than all, was the _need_ that he could not deny. It would be worth even his life if the King took him as he had that one night.

But he did not have a life to give, entangled in spiritual bondage both to Alphgarth and the King, and he would _not_ endure Thranduil's contempt and hatred again. He turned his back, fighting for breath.  
  
“Bainalph— ”

He heard the creak of armour as the King stepped toward him and flung up his hands in a warding gesture. “Do not touch me. If you command me to return, then I will.” He had no choice. He could not abandon Alphgarth. If he died in battle so be it, that was beyond his control, but he could not simply give up his home, his people. “But you will leave me alone.”

“I only wish to comfort you.”

“ _You_ cannot comfort me.” Bainalph whirled. The King's eyes burned a fire-ice blue, looking at him as he had so long ago, and they struck sparks from Bainalph's skin. The truth was he did not want comfort from Thranduil; he wanted the impeccable cruelty that stripped him to the bone and forced him, pitiless, into ecstasy. He had found that in Tindómion, and wondered if the Fëanorion had even been aware of his potential for it. He had found it in Edenel, which fact did not surprise him in the least, knowing his history. He _knew_ it was in Vanimórë, and was the very reason Sauron's son had not taken him.

But first he had found it in Thranduil, and that wild night had shown him what he was, what he wanted from his lovers. He did not look for kindness in sex; he _needed_ to be utterly, savagely dominated, but Thranduil had taught him another thing, that he could not endure _mental_ cruelty. It twisted him into a small, helpless thing inside. Yet (and horribly) he had grown used to it. He simply did not know how to cope with the King in this kindlier mood. It took the ground from under his feet.

He strode to the flap, ran unsteady fingers through his hair, then thrust open the flap. Blowing snow whitened the night.  
The guards saluted.  
“Send for Lord Edenel,” he said, struggling with his breath. The _Ithiledhil_ were scouting northward. “There are new orders. We return to Alphgarth.”

“Yes, my Lord.” One of the guards vanished into the snow.

“Bainalph,” Thranduil said, so close that he could smell the spice-and-flowers of his hair. Bainalph turned.  
“You want me to forgive you.” He laughed, felt the coldness in it, his own confusion. “I cannot. I will not. Ever.”  
  


OooOooO

“ _Fingolfin_?”

The voice came from the far side of his reverie. The wind slapped at the pavilion walls as it had in another place, another time...

Lake Mithrim. Winter.

  
Only when he was alone could he allow the poise to crack, and sometimes he feared the cracks would grow too deep for him to knit them together again, to turn his face to the world, the duties of a High King.

He still found himself waiting for Fëanor to walk into the encampment, blooded, his armour scorched and battered, but _alive._ He would not. His soul had set his dying body aflame, become ash in the wind, and always now Fingolfin would search for some-one who was not there.

The emptiness of Fëanor's absence threatened to suck in the world; reality swirled towards the voracious maw and barely clung to its edges. Fëanor dead was no less potent than Fëanor living.  
  
The pain tore from him in a shuddering breath. Even here, alone in his pavilion he had to be cautious. Guards stood outside and his children, his lords, the Fëanorions (at least Maedhros or Maglor) might come to see him day or night. He found himself listening, guessing how much private time he had to spill some of the anguish that gnawed him hollow. A hollow King, a hollow man.

He rested the heels of his hand against his eyes. Fëanor lived behind his closed eyelids. The scorch of a look across a crowded chamber, the secret smiles, the incandescence of the sex that Fingolfin had imagined (but even his most erotic fantasies had not been equal to the reality of it) and the aftermath, before desire rose again. When they lay sated and entangled he felt, holding Fëanor, as if he held the world in his arms. Fingolfin had lived for those times, and there were never enough.

He had hoped that when they reached Middle-earth Fëanor's madness would have cooled. It would not have been easy to knit the schism, not after the Ice, but for the sake of all the Noldor it must be done, and Fingolfin would have initiated it.

The fracture was knitting, albeit with ragged edges that would not be made whole, but there was no Fëanor. Fingolfin wanted, with startling violence, to wrench Arda back on its axis, to come to the time before Fëanor's death and, somehow change the outcome. His bones shook with the inescapable fact of his half-brother's death. He dropped his head into his hands, only for the lifting of the inner flap to draw it upright again. The man carried with him a drift of cold air, the scent of the lake, its edges rimed with ice.

“Hendunár.”* His voice came calm on a faint smile. “Come in.”

There were not a few among the host like this warrior, whom had come to him when Finarfin turned back. Hendunár's father was one of Finarfin's councillors, but this son seemed to have inherited nothing from his sire. He was all flashing iron-black eyes and a great wave of jet hair that had whipped about him on the Ice, but was now neatly braided. He was the youngest son, and had brought only his body-servant and sword-arm, but he was a natural warrior and the Helcaraxë had not dimmed a delicious inner sparkle. Hendunár. did not know what it was to give up, and Fingolfin had attached him to his own personal guard for that and maybe other reasons. Hendunár was strikingly beautiful, and something in the sinful mouth and fiery eyes reminded Fingolfin of his half-brother.

“Sire.” Hendunár bowed.

“Sit down,” Fingolfin gestured.

“I am sorry to disturb thee.”

Times of privacy were few, but this one could never trespass on them.  
“Thou art not.” He tilted his head. “What is it?” Hendunár was free with his smiles and Fingolfin had grown accustomed to them, but they were not in evidence this night.  
  
“My Lord,” Hendunár spoke without his usual confidence but came straight to the point. “There is a woman who wishes to marry me.”

No-one among the Noldor had married since their arrival in Middle-earth and there was a visceral feeling, no — a _knowledge_ among them that here, marriage was not only about love or even policy; it was an act of faith in the future.

“Then I am happy for thee.” But startled. “And who is she?”  
  
“Móriel of the House of the Raven.”

Fingolfin knew the woman. Or rather her mother, Ballineth, whose body had long sunk into the wastes of the northern sea. Ballineth was Unbegotten and made the Great Journey to Valinor with her husband, Losson, a Vanya, whom had drifted away to Valmar for ever-increasing periods of time while his wife remained in Tirion. She was a scholar whom had quietly, unashamedly published essays on the the life of the Elves before the Great Journey.

The books had circulated both in Tirion and Alqualondë, albeit surreptitiously; it was an unwritten law that the old life of the First Comers be banished from mind. But, for that very reason, the writings were fascinating. Forbidden things always are. Fëanor had known Ballineth and read the books, as had Fingolfin. He suspected many people owned them, even if they did not admit to it publicly. Ballineth's daughter, born after many barren years, and one of Losson's infrequent visits to his wife, was a surprise, but even a child could not draw him back and, not long after, he had severed the connection forever, removing to Taniquetil.

Móriel, like her mother, was intelligent and scholarly. Both had been eager to leave Valinor and, like Hendunár, had originally followed Finarfin. Fingolfin had once wondered at Ballineth attaching herself to his younger brother; in heart and mind one would have thought her more likely to follow Fëanor. But, in the days that now seemed golden, when he and Fëanor were lovers, he had heard of a furious argument between the two. Perhaps they were bound to butt heads, for both were egoistic. In any event, Ballineth followed Finarfin but continued on when he turned back. Finrod had welcomed her among his people.

“I know of her.” His mind conjured an image of a lovely woman with ice-coloured eyes and black hair that fell water-fall straight. Her household was a small one and Finrod had taken Móriel under his protection. She was the Lady of the House in her own right, the title passing from Ballineth because Losson was not Noldo.  
“Where didst thou come to know her?”

“I knew her in Tirion, Sire.” He spread his hands eloquently. “We have been meeting for some little time now. And she spoke of love.”

“And how dost thou feel?” Fingolfin asked him.

“I am very fond of her.” Hendunár placed the words carefully.

Fingolfin pointed again to the chair. “Sit down. Hendunár. Do not deceive her. If thou canst not love her, it is unfair to raise her hopes.”  
  
“Sire.” He sat rather stiffly, clasped his hands on the table. “We are friends. I respect her. In Valinor noble marriages were built on less.”

 _Like mine,_ Fingolfin thought, but before he could speak Hendunár came up out of his seat with the quickness of a cat and a breathy curse.  
“My Lord.” He closed the restless space between them, his discomfiture cast away like a cloak. This was the beautiful warrior of those freezing nights of cruel stars or whipping snow, hot, passionate, willingly taking everything Fingolfin could give out of his own silently screaming anguish. “My beautiful Lord, my King. I have come to know that whatever is between us, thy heart will not be mine. Some-one else lives in thine eyes.”

Guilt cored Fingolfin to the marrow. Hendunár was no boy; he had come to his majority during Fëanor's banishment, but he was young enough for Fingolfin to feel compunction. But the Helcaraxë had sounded the Noldor to the very depths of their will, stripped them to their naked spirits, and on that bitter spine of the world one took comfort where one could. There was little enough.

It had not been premeditated, that night when the wind, all teeth and cruelty whined across the frozen sea and the Noldor paused under a sky that rippled with green lights. Fingolfin, cloaked in furs, worked oil into his sword harness and boots. None of the host wanted to stop, to prologue the terrible journey, but they had to go at the pace of the slowest, and so made use of these times of pause to eat, to rest, to repair their gear.  
  
His thoughts focussed on Fëanor. Even at the bleakest of times (and there were many of them) Fingolfin did not doubt he would cross the Ice and find his half-brother. He had imagined their meeting, fed it through a sieve of multiple scenarios that all ended with them locked, unified, in sex. But Fëanor had left them to return to the cage of Valinor or die, and Fingolfin hoped that it was the former, that his half-brother had believed they would turn back. _But he_ must _have known I would follow!_

He was alone when Hendunár entered the tent, just returned from a patrol. Because of the shifting ice it was necessary to send people ahead of the host, but Fingolfin ensured the patrols were swiftly rotated.

Hendunár's skin was white as the Helcaraxë, his eyes so dark they shone with purple glints. He pushed back the fur hood with gloved hands and bowing, made his report. Fingolfin did not require a personal guard in this place; it was an unnecessary vanity, and Hendunár was a man who needed to be doing.  
  
“Take some rest.” He poured a cup of emberwine and offered it. All supplies were harboured against want and distributed carefully, but Fingolfin cherished those who went out onto the treacherous ice and ensured they knew it. All were volunteers, and too many had died. If he were honest with himself, he had not wished Hendunár to go, but that was pure selfishness, having its roots in a too-familiar fire and a beauty that, while different to Fëanor's, still blazed in the wastes.

Hendunár sipped with pleasure.  
“Ah, that is good, Sire.” The spirit stung a wash of colour over his cheeks. He held the cup out. Fingolfin declined with a faint smile.  
“It is reserved for those in need, and those who risk their lives, thou knowest that.”

“Sire, thou wouldst honour me by sharing it.” The ardour in the words surprised Fingolfin. “And I would raise a toast to thee, the star we follow, never faltering, never showing weariness or despair.” He lifted the cup. “I have come to see those who shine. Thy son Fingon is one, Galadriel and Aegnor, Finrod, for all his glow is softer. Glorfindel and Ecthelion of Turgon's people. But all of them — all of _us_ follow _thee._ ”

Moved, Fingolfin accepted the drink almost pushed into his hands and took a mouthful before handing it back. It streaked a line of hot fire down his throat and lay in his belly. He had not tasted emberwine since the night Fëanor abandoned them. He had needed something then, to warm the shock-cold spaces within. Sip by sip, in silence, they emptied the cup. Hendunár stared at Fingolfin across the dregs, eyes huge and brilliant and their depths opening to a look such as Fëanor used to turn on him.  
“My Lord.” His voice dropped low. “There is something I did not put in my report: I almost died on my patrol. The ice shifted and cracked under me. I have never been so close to death. And it made me realise that there may not be another time for this.”

Fingolfin had caught his shoulders. He said, “Time for what?”

“To tell thee that I want thee. Thou art the ice that burns when it touches the flesh, the steel that cuts soft as snowfall. The Laws can rot like the waste they are.” His breath came fast. “Eru, I have wanted thee since first seeing thee. I might die on my next patrol. So be it. But I will not die without this — ”

The only words spoken after that were Fingolfin's warning: “I will hurt thee,” and Hendunár's murmured: “No thou shalt not. I want this, and I am not a virgin.”

The wind-scoured night _burned_. Fingolfin had shut his desires behind grief and rage, the weight of responsibility and the fact that for him it had always been Fëanor that obsessed him. He still did, always would, but Hendunár opened him to the knowledge that he could want others, and ah, _Eru_ he needed. He was not gentle, and Hendunár was as aggressive as he, urging him through clenched white teeth until the last of Fingolfin's control was lost to lust.

That was only the first time. It was not a relationship as Fingolfin understood it, was as secret as his trysts with Fëanor, but it was something: a closeness born of war and suffering – and the Crossing of the Helcaraxë was a war indeed against an enemy who had no face but cold, no form but ice. Fingolfin also felt a certain relief in his company, because Hendunár said nothing defamatory against the Fëanorions. Fingolfin could not defend his half-brother against the words of hatred and vengeance, for they were merited, but neither would he answer them and his expression soon turned the subject. All Hendunár said once was: “Wouldst thou indeed have made a bid for the High Kingship, Sire? For such were the rumours.”

“No,” Fingolfin did not even need to think. He had never so much as hinted of such a thing, yet others had and the rumours had flown like birds. “Yet I would have hoped to temper his...madness. I still hope to do that.” He surveyed the bright, beautiful face thoughtfully. “I think, hadst thou been older, thou wouldst have followed him. Thou art of his ilk.”

“Ah,” Hendunár said laughing. “My father was afraid of Fëanor and relieved when he was banished. He disapproved of my friendship with Móriel because of her mother; that was my first act of rebellion. As for thee, Sire, he considered thee too proud, too aloof.”

Fingolfin felt a wry amusement tug at his mouth. “Thou didst not seem to find me so.”  
  
“I did. I do. Thou art intimidating. But I _wanted_ thee, and I saw that there was fire deep within thee, hidden.”  
It was an acute observation and a true one. As was this one now, beside Mithrim.

“I wish I could have healed thy heart, Sire,” Hendunár said, the light drawing deep angled shadows under his cheeks. “But I think no-one alive now can do that.”

“No,” Fingolfin agreed. “I am sorry. Thy courage in coming to me, thy generosity, deserves so much more.”

“Courage!” Black brows snapped together. He seized Fingolfin's hands and drew them to his breast. “I would not know how to live with a shattered heart, how to keep my soul alive moment upon moment. I do not think I will ever know it.”

“Hush,” Fingolfin soothed, aching. He did not know how he had given himself away, perhaps when he had felt, like the doom of the world, Fëanor's death, but Hendunár would never speak of it, he knew. “Does Móriel stay with Finrod?”

Hendunár inclined his head, his eyes still fixed upon Fingolfin's. “For the comfort he gave both she and her mother when crossing the Ice, and to Móriel after Ballineth died.”

“And so I must release thee from my service.” But his heart was cold, cold with dread, and a flash of instinct cried out to him to deny the marriage. _There is death in it._ But, _Eru!_ was there not death for many of them? They had seen Morgoth's fortress. The Fëanorions had named it _Angband_. The Hells of Iron.

“If it is truly thy wish, I will release thee to Finrod — and Móriel.” He could not — would not — make things difficult for Hendunár.

  
Hendunár had indeed come to love Móriel, not as deeply as she loved him but enough for their marriage to prosper. He so distinguished himself in the Dagor Aglareb that Finrod had made him second-in-command of his river fortress of Minas Tirith **. There, his wife had watched as Sauron's servants roasted him alive and devoured him while he still lived. After, Sauron took Hendunár's form and raped her. She was mad by then, kept alive only by Sauron's power and Morgoth's will.  
  
There had been scarce any time between Fingolfin's death and Hendunár's and in the Everlasting Dark, both were shown how the other had died.  
When the Void was broken open and Hendunár returned he searched for Móriel until Lórien himself came and lead him to the gardens. Hendunár did not leave for New Cuiviénen. He sat beside his wife because death and rebirth, as he had already learned, healed nothing. Nothing at all.  
  


OooOooO

 

“ _Fingolfin_?”

When Hendunár left, Fingolfin sat in silence wanting to call him back. He pressed his fingers to his temples, closed his eyes. Perhaps he was mistaken. Since Fëanor's death the future was a wasteland, with black fire at the end of it. But _no_. He must be wrong about that, wrong about Hendunár. Grief damaged the mind, made all things dark. There had to be hope and victory. He must, anyhow, act as if there were.

“Fingolfin?”

Maglor's hair was drawn in a thick, loose braid over one shoulder as if he had bound it in haste. The lamplight limned his face, burned his eyes into mirrors of reflected light. It was pain and pleasure both to look at him, so like Fëanor. Fingolfin came to his feet found, from the reserves that had brought him this far: “Maglor?”  
  
Maglor raised a hand. “Nothing to report. But we heard that Lady Edlothiel is expecting a child. We would give her and Lord Penlod our best wishes, but they are of Turgon's folk and we are not welcome among them.” This with a quirk of the mouth that was all his father's.

Turgon would never forgive the Fëanorions for their desertion that lead to his wife's death. Already his people were drawing together and apart from the rest of the host. But the birth of the first child since arriving in Middle-earth was a matter of hope for every-one. If marriage was an act of faith in the future, children were a promise of it. Yes, his premonitions were smoke lifted from the pyre of anguish. Fingolfin would not heed them.  
“I will give Lady Edlothiel thy good wishes,” he said. “She is more... _flexible_ than Penlod.”

“A daughter, is it?” Maglor asked.

“Yes, and Edlothiel has already chosen her name: Fanari.” Fingolfin's faint smile died at the expression that came into Maglor's eyes.  
  
“Fanari?” The name was tilted into a question.

“Dost thou see something?” Fingolfin poured a cup of mead. It would be some time before the Noldor could plant their own vineyards, not until they had left the encampment to build their own kingdoms, but mead was easy to brew. Maglor,'s elegant fingers folded around the cup. His brows crooked.  
“I do not know what I see,” he whispered. “Nothing is clear any more, save the Oath.”

“No,” Fingolfin agreed. There was no use in saying it, but he said it anyhow: “Be careful.”

“Careful.” Maglor shook out a bitter laugh.

“Thou must fulfil the Oath, I know, but do not throw thy life away as he...” His voice fractured.

Maglor closed his eyes, long lashes a thick black fan above his cheeks. But they could not hold back the pain that slashed across his face like a whipstroke. “I do not believe... I never thought he could leave us.”

“I know.” _I never thought he could leave me, either._  
  
“I cannot...I keep running into a wall when I think of him being dead. I saw his body burn to...ash, and the ash blew away on the wind, and —” His chest heaved. “I _still_ look for him.”

“Thou, also?”

Maglor's eyes traced over him as if he were searching for something. Pain sang raw in the air between them as he slipped something from within his tunic cuff, set it on the table: a tiny pouch closed with a silk drawstring. Carefully Maglor eased back the strings, tipped the contents into his palm.

Dust, greyish and so fine it misted as it settled on his skin.  
“We were holding him when he died.” He spoke to the ash. “And it was not...” Fissures ran through his voice, broke into his body. “not an easy death. Those demons of fire, _Balrogs_ are like nothing I had seen or imagined. Yet he was fighting them, four of them when we reached him, and he was burned, bleeding.” His head jerked up. Moisture gathered on his lashes. “Morgoth sent demons of fire to slay the Spirit of Fire.”

The pressure built in Fingolfin's chest, clamping a vise about his throat. A pulse throbbed there, hard, painful. He stared at the dust, all that was left of brilliance, and beauty, wit and passion to sear the soul; passion that could have ignited this world, or burned it to ash — as he had burned. Fëanor was difficult to love, (or too easy, depending on who one was) could drive people from him with the lash of his temper, or charm them into a depth of loyalty and love that not even death could sever.

“This is all we have,” Maglor whispered. “This and the Oath.” He reached for the empty cup, filled it with mead and clapped the other hand down over it. When he lifted it, a patina floated on the surface, breaking apart, sifting down. He drew a dagger from his belt and stirred, then held the cup out. “Let us share the...last of him.” The shadows of a long madness crouched behind his eyes, and Fingolfin felt it within himself. He said, painfully: “This is not the last of him.”

“The last of him in this world. Thou knowest where he is now.”

“Not forever.” It could not be forever.

Maglor turned his head away. Fingolfin looked at the steely, beautiful profile, and _hurt_.

“He truly was fey, when we abandoned thee, and after. Never forget that. We none of us were wholly sane.” Maglor shifted, his eyes coming to meet Fingolfin's. “We never will be again. So share with me, uncle.”

Fingolfin took the mead and drank it as if he could absorb the ash into his blood, his bones, his soul. He almost choked, not with revulsion, but because it was so _little_. He handed the half that was left to Maglor who tossed it back, then held the goblet to his brow.

“I gave this to thee because thou canst not grieve for him as we can.” He put the cup down. His hands curled about Fingolfin's wrists. “He loved thee.”

The words slaughtered Fingolfin's heart afresh. He shook his head, scraped up words.  
“He did not.” His voice sounded like a memory.

“Thou didst not see him as we did, going to thee, or coming from thee, we surmised. It was not a secret from us.”

The phantom knife did its bloody work on his heart, pitiless. He saw the mirror of it in Maglor's eyes.  
  
“If thou wilt believe nothing else, believe that he did love thee.”

Had he? Fingolfin wondered, and his memories rushed headlong toward the past, to every look, every smile, every touch. The flames incinerated what was left of his heart.

“I was jealous, at first,” Maglor murmured. “I wish— that he had taken me, not drawn back. I used to come to see thee not only because I truly liked thee but because it seemed a way of being close to him without the danger of it, for thou didst not look on me with desire.”

Fingolfin said with difficulty, “Thou art the image of him. Do not think I did not look on thee with desire. But I had learned, over the years, to bury my hungers very deep.” He wondered if Fëanor's conscience had pricked him just enough for him to spare his son. Or had it spared him? One could not judge the Fëanorians against other, more conventional families.

Pain crossed Maglor's face again. “Sometimes a look, a turn of the head, and thou couldst be him— Ah, I wish...but I could not have hidden it as thou didst, and I could not bring shame on all my family.”

“There would have been no shame for him.” Fingolfin detached his hands, cupped Maglor's face. The grainless flesh was hot under his fingetips. “Shame could never cling to him. It cannot, even now.” His eyes dropped to the precise, sensuous curve of Fëanorion lips. “Maglor...”

The silver eyes were almost black with the dilation of their pupils.  
  
“Take him from me,” Fingolfin whispered. “Every kiss, every touch.”

Maglor shook his head. “I cannot take him from thee. But I will share him with thee. Thou art so like him. More, I think than any-one knows.”

“So art thou,” Fingolfin said.

The kiss was red savagery and starvation; it was familiar and strange, wildfire, nails of pain that splintered Fingolfin's bones. Their need was frightening in its intensity. Fingolfin made love to Fëanor, dead and gone, even as (he knew) Maglor sought his father in Fingolfin. They sucked Fëanor from the marrow of one another's souls. And yet, they were too much themselves to be wholly surrogates. They were Finwëion. There was no healing in it; there could never be, but there was an aching, and ultimately hopeless, comfort.

It did not happen often, snatched, frenzied moments. They did not speak, did not need to.  
  
  
“Fingolfin,” Maglor repeated, and drew Fingolfin out of the past. They looked at one another and Fingolfin saw that Maglor had been brushing against his memories. He was not offended.  
  
Fëanor knew about them. Whether he had been shown it in the Void or could read both his son and half-brother, he knew. Why else would he had drawn them together, all three, during Nost-na-Lothion?

Maglor said, “He needs thee, Fingolfin.”

“He has me,” Fingolfin said with an evenness he did not feel. “I support him because I believe in his dream.” He leaned both hands on the table. “He knows it. Thou must know it.” Maglor's face, carved by light and shadow was far beyond beauty. The winter wind had ruffled his hair, hastily braided, flushed rose into the arch of his cheeks. But this was not the Maglor of the Elder Days; the Ages of loneliness had embedded themselves deep into those silver eyes and, even now, the shadow lingered.  
“Maglor,” Gently. “Is he pressuring thee?”

“I would not use thee to deflect my father,” Maglor responded with a flick of fire. “No. I almost wish he was. No. He is furious with thee. And we fear for him. Celegorm spoke to him when we visited Finrod, and after confided in me. And we have talked.” His gesture indicated his brothers. “It is something we all fear.”

“He will not descend into madness again,” Fingolfin asserted. “Not now he has his sons with him. It is not as it was, then.”

“Thou art not seeing clearly.” Maglor brought down one hand hard on the table. “Thou canst not see, or perhaps thou wilt not, how he needs thee, also.”

“Thou knowest what would happen if it became known we were lovers.”

“He would not care.”

“ _I_ care!” Fingolfin almost shouted before lowering his voice, and slipping into mental speech. _And I have to care_ for _him if he will not. He is the only man I would permit to rule over me. I will not see the Noldor fall to another, not even one of my sons._

Maglor was silent, eyes searching. Then he gave the barest nod. _Thou art as proud as he._ A swift, piercingly sweet smile. _At least thou wilt see him, meet with him, so that it seems to all those who observe that matters are — stable between thee._

“Of course I will.”  
  
“Good, because he will be calling a council two days hence, concerning Angmar. I think he believed thou wouldst not attend.”

“Sometimes,” Fingolfin said. “I think thy father knows nothing about me. I am his High Councillor. Whatever our personal differences I will stand by him. _I want to be at his side when he marches on Taniquetil._ When he brings the Valar down.” He felt the flames in his mouth as he spoke, and Maglor's eyes widened.  
“Yes,” he said. “Ah, yes. Hells, I wish he could have seen thee say that.”  
  
“He knows my mind.”  
  
“And yet I think his fear blinds him.” Maglor ran his hand up Fingolfin's arm to his face. “That thou dost not love him as he loves thee. Thou art so beautiful, so remote at times. Few have seen thee undone.”

His cheeks heated. “He knows I am not as I may appear and that in itself was — _is_ — a mask.”

“We all wear them. But I have seen the true man beneath it, and that is the one I sought. It is the one my father seeks also.”

“Maglor—” The touch brought arousal in its wake as surely as the tide is called by the Moon. “I wish that man could show his true face in freedom. But when we love as we love, what can one do but conceal it? Even Fëanor knew we had to hide our relationship in Valinor, as we two did, in Beleriand.”

“I think he believed it would be different, now.” Maglor leaned closer.

“People change only slowly,” Fingolfin murmured almost against that wonderful mouth. “And we Noldor are a stiff-necked people.”  
  
“I wonder if we are, truly, or whether we were shaped that way in Valinor, forced into skins that did not fit us.” Maglor's breath shuddered. “Eru! I have always known how thou couldst drive father mad for thee.” He drew back, arms folded across his chest. Fingolfin forced a cramped breath into his lungs. It would be so easy, so fatal to succumb, and he could not lay with Maglor, not while Fëanor was in this mood. He would know. Maglor would not be able to hide it, not from his father. His pose now was closing Fingolfin (and perhaps Fëanor) out.

“Maglor,” he began, for he had seen it since their arrival here. Loving his father, his brothers as Maglor did with that focussed, obsessional intensity of the Fëanorions, there was yet a part of him he refused to share.  
  
“I wondered, time and again why we Finwëions turned to one another, why we let no-one in.” Maglor spoke without looking at him. “What do we see that we need and desire so much? And why all of us, if it is such a sin?”

“No doubt the Valar would say it was part of the Marring of Arda and all in it by Morgoth.” But if it were a marring, why did it feel so inevitable, so natural? “And there are some we welcome, at least a little way in.” He thought of Hendunár, what he could give him, and what he could not.

“Yes.” Maglor's shoulders formed a bar of denial. “And some whom will not be shut out.” He swung around, white teeth showing in a snarl.

Strange the way the mind works. Fingolfin, thinking of Hendunár, followed the link to Móriel, and then to her son. Hers, but not Hendunár's. A son created of rape and sorcery. Not many knew; they thought of Vanimórë as Sauron's son, but Glorfindel had told a few of them whom his mother was. It was a hideous knowledge.

“Thou knowest of whom I speak.” Maglor's voice held the same bared anger.

“One thou wilt not speak of to thy father or brothers.”

“Nor to my son. At least not everything, not the deeper things. In a way it is not necessary. He was _with_ me. And still I cannot speak, and my father, my brothers wish to know. They wait. We do not have secrets. At least, we never did.” His fingers dug white into his arms. “But _that_ I do not wish to share with them. Nor with thee. It seems the only person I could truly share it with is _him._ I wanted to kill him. I think I still want to.” His headshake loosed a cascade of gleaming hair. “He was in my mind, there, in Barad-dûr. He saw my memories of father. He said ' _That is not something I personally would feel any guilt over. The mighty Fëanor showed thee what it was to feel desire? How fortunate for thee.'_ He sounded like my father. He understood. I could hide nothing, not then, and he simply did not care. He did not see it as shameful, as sinful. He, Sauron's son. And, Hells, _I hate him._ ” He looked wild, gorgeous, and _roused._  
  
And the air _ripped_. Fingolfin no longer saw the inner chamber of his pavilion, but a small room lit by flashes of lightning, walls of stone and wood, a candle jogging in a wind-draft. Three people in attitudes of confrontation. The woman Fingolfin had seen before, the other two only in a vision all the Elves has been given: Vanimórë and Elgalad, the one he had brought back from death, the catalyst that had opened the Everlasting Dark.

Fingolfin stared as sound swelled and broke against his ears, and Vanimórë's intense beauty slapped him. There was, for all he was Sauron's son, something of Hendunár in him. He was cold, perilous with rage.

As he watched, listened, nailed by growing outrage, Maglor took a step forward as if he would enter the far-off room. Fingolfin saw him clap a hand to his sword-hilt and realise that he could do nothing as the vision unfolded. His own mirrored the action as he heard the one they had all called the _Mother_ rip out Vanimórë's history, his slavery and fling it into his face. Fingolfin glimpsed then, an appalling loneliness hidden behind the glamour of his face and form. He really believed no-one wanted him, that the woman's words were absolute truth.  
  
Vanimórë's control was greater than Elgalad's who shone silver as starlight with his own anger. There was something supremely unnerving in such self-discipline; it only cracked when Dana mentioned his mother, Móriel, a sister...And Fingolfin thought that goddess or no, Dana ought to fear him. It seemed she did, for she recoiled before him.  
The order for her to leave was like a king's command to join battle. It rang out of Fingolfin's soul and he heard others that he knew and those he did not. The power in it thrummed like the note of a great harp and later, he would wonder what power could banish a goddess. At the last he was held motionless as he saw Elgalad enclose Vanimórë in an embrace that promised protection and love, and it was too poignant, too private for Fingolfin to intrude upon. He turned his face away as the vision dissolved, to see Maglor's face a collision of emotions. And he understood it. Vanimórë would imprint himself like a maker's mark on whomever he touched, and upon Maglor's soul that mark was stamped deep.  
  
“Dost thou see, Fingolfin?” Then he flung a hand over his eyes. “Damn him. He would not have allowed any-one to see that were it not needful. And to the Hells with _her._ _How dare she_?”

“I think thy father will convene a meeting at once.” Fingolfin slid an arm about him and, after a moment of rigidity Maglor leaned against him. “And yes, I see.”  
  
  


OooOooO

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Hendunár. The husband of Móriel, Vanimórë's mother. He was mentioned in the first chapter of Dark Prince.
> 
> ** Minas Tirith in the Silmarillion was the name of Finrod's river fortress that became Tol-in-Gaurhoth where Vanimórë was born.


	64. ~ Voyages Of Darkness ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first of three chapters coming up in quick succession.

**Voyages Of Darkness**

  


~ “Thou wert a monster to me, a nightmare until Manwë supplanted thee.” Eärendil struck the flat of his sword against that arrogant, beautiful face and a red mark scorched across milk-white skin. Maeglin startled, violence springing into pale grey eyes, but he seemed to catch it back, lifting his head.  
“Thou wert a name as cursed as Fëanor's. I learned of thee from my parents, of thy strangeness, thy crookedness. Secretive, sly, dangerous, my mother said, a dark seed that grew into a poisonous flower.” Light flicked like liquid fire down the blade. “I could never believe that any Elf could betray their own. Thy grandsire _died_ challenging Morgoth. That my father killed thee seemed little enough punishment for thy treachery.” He dragged in a swift breath. “Then I am freed after two Ages to find thee alive again, accepted by the people of Imladris, by my own grandsons, by Fingolfin and Fëanor, by Glorfindel. I am told thou hast repented and served thy sentence. I am also told that my parents are coming here to bring thee to account.” He withdrew the sword a fraction. “I hate the Valar more than thee, and I have vowed not to kill thee, but I will hear thy regrets from thine own lips. I will hear thee declare thyself ashamed of hounding my mother, terrifying her— ”  
  
“I did not,” Lómion denied, quick as a whip. “or at least not purposely! I regret frightening her, although I am unsure _how_ I did so. I alarmed Fanari more than she. Idril would not go to her father, but she did not hesitate to place another women between herself and my 'crookedness'. Hast thou not asked _her_? She was close to thy mother.”  
  
“Liar.” Eärendil had been raised on Idril's oft-spoken memories. He saw Maeglin-Lómion as a dark threat hovering at her shoulder, spying on her, eyes holding the promise of degradation, rape, cruelty, all the strangeness of his Sindarin blood and the eerie magic of Nan Elmoth. His own brief remembrances (he had rarely glimpsed Maeglin) of a tall beauty with a face like cut ice and eyes as cold were smudged away, befogged by Idril's far more lurid tales until even the face and form were perverted into something more nearly resembling an orc.

Eärendil's childhood in sheltered Gondolin, surrounded by beauty, had lead him to believe that evil must be repellent. The notion was deeply embedded and had never quite left him until he set foot on the glittering strands of Valinor. The glamour the Valar cast over themselves had quickly worn thin to his eyes. Beneath, they were no better nor worse than any human, but they considered themselves the ultimate lawgivers on Middle-earth and beyond, and had the power to enforce their mandates.

Until Eärendil entered his long nightmare, he remembered Maeglin as a twisted horror. It was only now that his own _true_ memories ambushed him with vivid reality. And somehow it made everything worse. He was not prepared for Lómion's beauty, his poise. It reminded him too much of the Valar, but when he tried to look past it, to recreate the monstrosity, he saw only pain. In the Valar's eyes there was nothing.

“I do not lie.” Lómion's face was moulded out of haughtier. Then, abruptly, startlingly it melted into a gentler expression. “If thou wouldst speak to me, come to my chambers. This is not a private place.”

A score of blistering responses scorched toward Eärendil's lips but what he said seemed to come from nowhere.  
“Why? To seduce me as thou didst Beleg Cúthalion? It will not work. I am not of that ilk.”

Immediately he felt colour flood his face. Raised by parents who viewed such relationships as deviant, he had never looked on men with desire though, as a ship's captain, he was aware such liaisons occurred, sometimes because of the absence of women, sometimes because the sailors preferred other men.  
  
He had never interfered. Glorfindel and Ecthelion, the subject of his childhood worship, and whispered of among the people of Sirion, had died heroes, whether they had been lovers or no. Anyhow, Eärendil was half-Mortal and could not bring himself to believe that such relationships, wrong though they might be, would bring punishment. It might be regrettable; he might consider it incomprehensible, but there were greater matters to concern him.

But for those words to leave his mouth, clearly sprung from his deep subconscious, appalled him. He had, since his awakening, found himself talking without thinking. Glorfindel said it was because, in the gaol of Vingilot, he had not been able to say or do anything.  
  
“Those in the Void could at least defy,” Glorfindel had said. “They were conscious of existing, though that existence was terrible beyond imagining. Thou wert as a man in a coma, save when Manwë woke thee.”

Perhaps Eärendil could not understand why Beleg whose story, intertwined with Túrin's, he had heard in Arvernien, could possibly take Lómion to his bed. How any-one could. But Beleg himself, returned from a mission to the North, and meeting him one mild, golden day, had mentioned it, leaving no doubt. It had been a disturbing, sickening knowledge until tonight, when the twisted image of Lómion, sewn by the fall of a city, and his mother's slender fingers, further embroidered by those eager to pile infamy deeper and deeper on his name, had shattered to reveal the reality.  
  
“That was not my intention.” One straight shoulder moved in a faint shrug. “Thou hast heard it all, no doubt, from Glorfindel or Fanari. But I did not harass Idril. I asked her to marry me. Even knowing the Noldorin laws, I thought they could be overlooked. The Sindar and Avari had no such laws, after all. She refused me with repugnance and it was then, I believe, that she began to hate me. Now, dost thou really wish to speak of this in a public place?”

“She said — No. I do not wish thee to sully her name at all, but I will have the truth.” He slammed his sword back into its sheath. “Come, then.”  
  
Lómion inclined his head in a gesture so lordly Eärendil wanted to beat it from him. But the Elf was already striding away, through the bath house, out of the doors and into the dark wind of the night.  
  
Eärendil trod behind him. As Lómion ascended the steps to the high walkways, the wind blustered, lifting the long black hair in its rough hands so that it whispered across Eärendil's face, cool and silken. He brushed it away angrily, but Lómion was not aware, did not turn, eating the stairs with long strides. They were high now, arching out over a courtyard below, and Eärendil remembered how strong arms had carried him to the walls of Gondolin, his terror, not so much for the man who held him, but the smoke and fire, the dreadful clangour of battle. The wind had blown strongly there, too, filled with cinders and the reek of blood.

He caught Lómion's arm, pulling him around, then shoving him back so that he stood at the lip of the walkway. No railing here, only slim arches that upheld a roof. The ice-grey eyes widened, stars in the grey-blowing night. They had glowed in Gondolin too with, what Eärendil later came to know, was madness. No doubt it had been in his own eyes when Manwë woke him on Vingilot, examining him as if he were some subhuman rarity.  
  
Lómion said, apparently unconcerned by the drop at his heels: “In this wheel of the story, thou may kill me, perhaps, but not now, I think. We have a war to fight.” He drew away firmly, but without violence and Eärendil, curses piling into his throat like rogue waves, caught up with him so that they walked abreast.

No other words passed between them until they came to Lómion's chambers. They were warm, welcoming, hangings and rugs in shades of misty blue and violet, oddly unexpected. The braziers carried a scent of incense and a peat fire glowed. A jug of wine stood near it, keeping warm on the tiles.

“Sit down.” Lómion lifted the jug and poured two silver cups.

Eärendil did not. “I do not want thine hospitality.” His voice grated on his own ears with metallic harshness. “As I told thee: I want the truth.”  
  
His antagonism did not seem to discompose Lómion; he merely set one cup on a small table and sipped the other before putting it aside. He did not sit either, but stood, tall and straight, pushed his windblown hair back over his shoulders.  
“Idril said she feared me,” he said expressionlessly. “When I asked her to marry me, her reaction was...extreme, as if I had threatened her with violence. She backed away, saying that my blood was too dark, that she could see it working in me like rot within wood. But I never imagined hurting her until the end, after I returned from — ” Detachment failed him. His voice plunged into silence.  
  
“Until Angband,” Eärendil pronounced it savagely, with relish even. “Where thou didst bow before Morgoth like a craven.”

“Did I?” Lómion tilted his head as if staring into the past. “I suppose I must have. He violated my mind so easily, and then he laughed and offered me everything I desired. I knew, or part of me knew, that it was a lie, but I wanted so much to believe it. And he showed me what would happen to me if I defied him. That, I could not face.”

“Others had faced it before thee,” Eärendil cried. “Maedhros, Húrin, Eru knows how many thralls tortured to death rather than betray their people. This son of Sauron made a god. Thou art a _coward!_ ”

The beautiful, high-boned face, alien in the way Eärendil had always found the Elves — though he was like them, ever he found himself awed by their gem-cut, unhuman beauty — went still as ice freezing. Then emotion shook through it, cracking the facade.  
“I _hated_ them! I _wanted_ them to fall. Turgon called me a prince and _regretted_ my mixed blood. I was accepted, and yet not, even when I proved myself in battle. Those who joined my House did so to learn from me, not for love of me. I had no friends, but the Lords of Gondolin expected _me_ to love _them_ , honour them, and be grateful for the opportunity. Turgon said he loved me but it was my mother's face he saw, and he ordered me to watch as they threw my father from Caragdûr as if he were _nothing_ , offal from a hunt tossed into the bushes for scavengers.” He stepped closer to Eärendil, his face frost-white, his eyes a burn of fury. “I did not even realise my father loved me until he told Turgon he would leave his wife but take his son, and it was too late then. But dost thou want to know, truly, what drove me to madness among Gondolin's white towers, long before I was captured? Glorfindel. Thy mother was a safer, shadowed reflection of him. I could not admit that I desired him, not at first. How could I? He and Ecthelion were the ones who took my father to Caragdûr and hurled him to his death. He never looked at me but with suspicion. And still. Still...Dost thou know what it is like to desire some-one so much, and _hate_ thyself for it?”  
“When Morgoth promised me everything I hungered for, Glorfindel is the one I saw in my mind, hating him, loving him, and always, _always_ wanting him, clinging to what he did give though I knew it was only a ploy to distract me, as he thought, from thy mother. Telling over each moment, re-living it again and again. He believed his...interventions were necessary, which suited me very well, but by then I hated Idril. Of course I should never have tried to use her as a substitute, but I was alone and lost, and _trapped_ , and when she refused me I never mentioned the matter again. It would have been nothing more than an embarrassing mistake in the back of my mind, but Idril never allowed me to forget it. I had offended her so deeply that I must be reminded. She would cross my path and shudder, flinch if my shadow fell over hers. I did all I could to ignore and avoid her, but that was not good enough for her, for how could she maintain the drama in which I was the villain and she the victim if I let her slip from my mind? She spread rumours and suspicion of me through Gondolin, so that all looked me askance. And in the end, I became the monster she believed me, proving her right! I hope she was satisfied.”

Despite the wind outside, the room was as still as the air after a storm when Lómion finished. He picked up his cup and drank more wine, turning his back upon Eärendil, tense and tall and straight.

“I do not believe a word of this.” But the declaration lacked heat. Eärendil remembered vividly the exaggerated shudders, fluttering of white hands and the rounded eyes that accompanied his mother's tales of her evil cousin. He had come to the realisation that Idril liked to enact the delicate, helpless maiden seeking a man's strong arm. In fact she was tough and durable as whitleather; she had crossed the Helcaraxë and, with Tuor, lead the refugees from Gondolin into the south. But the reality clashed with the way she wanted to see herself. And she thrived on attention perhaps because in Gondolin, Turgon's only child, pitied for her motherless state (although she was not the only one whom had lost family on the Ice), adored by her father, she had become accustomed to it. He remembered the last time he had seen her, dressed like a queen, head high with pride as Vingilot was launched. His father had simply looked grim, but by then he had already known that Valinor had changed both his parents. Their affection was distant; they had felt almost like strangers and he...? He had never felt so alone.  
  
“Ask Glorfindel,” Lómion's voice was stony, as if he regretted his outburst. “With his powers he can see all truths and lies. And he has no reason to defend me. ”

“I will.” But Eärendil did not leave. He had not finished. “He told me he was much to blame, and I said that thou couldst not abrogate thine actions with that excuse. He said thou didst not. But thou art blaming my mother for thine acts. And if it was Glorfindel who so obsessed thee, why didst thou take _me_?”

“I could not fight my way through to Glorfindel. I did not even know where he was. But I knew where thy mother would be.” So completely matter-of-fact, his reply. Eärendil shook with the passion, wanting to draw his sword again, ram it through that straight back under its sleek fall of hair. “Even in the Everlasting Dark, when I could see everything I had done, I did not quite know _why_ I took thee. To kill thee and stab her to the heart? To save thee? I knew all was lost, at least my soul knew it. How strange.” He half-turned, his profile a sculptor's finished masterpiece. “She would not leave me in peace in Gondolin; she will not leave me in peace here. But so this story must resolve itself, similar events echoing through the Ages. Perhaps it was her destiny to do what she did as it appears to have been mine to do what _I_ did.”  
  
“But she was _right_ about thee,” Eärendil challenged, wanting Lómion, Maeglin, whomever he was now, to _look_ at him, the better to read the lies hiding behind his face.

“Inevitably. Was I not destined to betray Gondolin?”  
  
“There has to be a time when we make a _choice._ ”  
  
“Yes,” Lómion said quietly. “There is. And we pay for all the choices we make. One way or another. As I am sure thou knowest.” Finally he turned to face Eärendil again. “I cannot go back and change what I did. But in this new life, I have made a different choice and spoken my vow, a vow to myself, but a vow to _them_ , too. My grandfather Fingolfin, and Fëanor.” The high sweep of his cheeks flushed with blood. “They _claimed_ me, and I will not betray their trust. I know what a risk it is for them! That is why nothing Idril says can touch me, not this time. I will prove myself and if I die I will not, this time, die with regret.” He _glowed_ when their names took shape in his mouth, so potent were they. Both of them. But in Eärendil's mind, Fëanor had always been associated with violence. Elwing spoke of the Fëanorions with terror and revulsion, of seeing them storm into Menegroth like a wildfire, unstoppable and fell. But Eärendil remembered Gil-galad coming from Balar and the private meeting with himself and Elwing. The High King had offered to be Elwing's intermediary to the remaining Sons of Fëanor.  
“For thou hast claimed a Silmaril of Fëanor,” he had said. “And both law and logic decree that the Jewel is theirs, not thine.”  
  
Elwing had risen from her seat in fury, asking if he did not know the tale of Beren and Lúthien, her ancestress? and he had replied, “Morgoth stole it, and it was stolen from him. Its true ownership cannot be disputed.”

Eärendil had been startled by Gil-galad's bluntness. Here was no golden-tongued politician but a man who said what he thought and in that, gained an enemy. Elwing poured out her store of bitter (and justifiable) wrath against the Fëanorions into the High King's face. But, when Gil-galad's own eyes blazed diamond-blue, quenching Elwing's and he too came to his feet and spoke, Eärendil realized what lay behind his words: Not lack of political acumen, but love that incinerated even the pretence of it.

“Dost thou think I do not know what they have done under the yoke of their Oath?” he demanded. “Yet I knew them when I was young and claim kinship and friendship with them. And more. Maedhros gave me my name. He loved my father. Thou hast lost those thou didst love, Lady. So have I. But so have they: Their father, and to hear them speak of him is for the heart to break. Three of their brothers. There are no closer blood ties than those within the House of Fëanor. They _must_ reclaim the Silmarils. Thou hast not worn it, I see. I have heard thou doth show it to no-one. But if thou hadst, I would have taken it from thee and ridden to Amon Ereb myself to give it into Maedhros' hand. And I would count the act well done.” His expression was grim as a black frost against her burst of outrage. “If thou wouldst avoid a repeat of the sack of Doriath, lady, thou wilt give it up willingly. The Oath drives them and sooner or later they will come for what is theirs. They have no choice. None at all.”

Eärendil, though he stood at his wife's side, found himself in agreement with Gil-galad. The Silmaril was...like nothing that had ever existed before. The people of Arvernien believed Elwing when she declared it blessed them, brought them fine weather, rich land and sea teeming with life. Perhaps, but if so, the price was going to be a high one in the end. He left Balar with cold words, but later hot ones flashed between he and his wife.

He had lived, before he began to sail, in a curious and fatalistic mood of depression. One day, the Silmaril would bring down not only the Fëanorions, but Morgoth's hordes. The remnants of the mighty (for he would not number the Fëanorion's among them) had been backed into this last toe-hold upon Middle-earth, and all Morgoth had to do was stretch out his hand, taloned with orcs uncounted, balrogs and Fell-wolves, and close his fist.

It was despair that had, at last, driven him into the West with the Silmaril on his brow and into a prison, though it had not been a prison at first, and the Silmaril he bore was real. It had to be, for a while. The Valar needed to gloat, to show the remaining sons of Fëanor that it was in their possession, but he had thought, at first, that it was a beacon of hope to Middle-earth, that he loved far more than neutered white Valinor where the remaining Elves were sapped of light and passion and the Valar were stone-eyed puppet-masters. But the emptiness of space, magnificent though it was, was more lonely and terrifying than any voyage upon the bosom of the sea. To see the blue and white globe of Arda receding was to feel utter panic. He, every child of Eru was tied to Arda's immutability, knew nothing else. To be apart from it made him feel like a tree whose roots had been pulled up.

He had gone willingly, eagerly into battle against the titan Ancalgon. But after the War of Wrath everything had changed. The Silmaril was taken from him and a duplicate (as if the Valar could ever hope to duplicate it!) set in its place, and when he journeyed out he did not come back. Seeking hope, he had become hope, become a lie spun out by the Valar over Ages. He had lost his sons (Elros, forever), his wife, even his choice of lineage.  
  
Hate roared up inside him and he heard through the flames, some-one saying his name. The rim of a cup pressed against his mouth and he gulped cool wine. It warmed his throat, his stomach, and he shirred himself out of the rage to find himself sitting down. Lómion's face was close to his, the crystal-grey eyes concerned, a wine-cup in his hand.  
“Drink a little more,” he ordered. “And sit still. Thou art hale in body, Glorfindel told me, but no mind can easily recover from— ”

“Dost thou think me mad?” Eärendil demanded furiously. He wanted to refuse the wine, but he had been starved so long of taste and texture, of everything _real_. He felt as if he would drift away from Arda, back to the nightmare of imprisonment, if he did not ground himself. Even the anger was something he could _feel_.  
  
“We are all a little mad.” There was no hint of a jest in Lómion's reply.  
  
Eärendil drank off the wine, said carefully, “I hate thee. Not as much as I should. The Valar have too much of my hate. I have little to spare.”

“Good,” Lómion said gravely. “We have other battles to fight.” He straightened, turned to the fire. “I am sorry for what I did, but words are bootless without action. I will prove myself and then, if I still live, I will go before Turgon for his judgement. I thought I would do this for myself, but not any-more. I will do this because I love them, my kin.”

“And what if my parents drive thee from Imladris?”  
  
“Gil-galad and Tindómion took me to one of the Noldor encampments. _They_ — all of them — know who I am. I would go there, or out into the wilds to fight. I will do whatever I have to to fulfil my vow.”

Eärendil dropped his head, gazed into the fire. An odd lassitude seeped through his body.  
“My parents are heroes,” he said to the glowing embers. “And thou art a traitor. They will not care who claims thee.”

Lómion spoke softly, but defiance broke the surface like a shark's fin. “ _I_ care. And that is all that matters to me.”  
  
The fire leapt, scorching the sky as Morgoth pulled up lava from beneath Thangorodrim. Molten rock crawled down black mountainsides, vanished into pits and crevasses where the Valar had battled and rent the earth. The air smelled _hot_ , metallic. The light beat against Eärendil's eyes and he raised an armoured hand against it.

Then a shape disfigured the steaming air. A colossus whose talons crumbled the mountaintops. Its wings stretched across half the sky. It raised its head, opened a throat that could have taken Vingilot in one gulp, and bellowed a challenge that snapped the sails taut...

He started out of the dream, one of his better ones, in fact. Ancalagon had been terrifying, yes, but at least something he could fight. The dreams of space were far worse.

The room was dark save for the glow of the fire. His limbs were sunk into goose-feather cushions, a soft blanket smelling of lavender had been laid over him. Outside, the wind moaned its lament to autumn but to Eärendil, laying in warmth, the sound was not lonely, but comforting.

He blinked as he realised that he had fallen asleep in Lómion's chamber and it must have been Lómion himself who moved him to a more comfortable position on the settle and covered him with a blanket.

Human kindness. A touch of consideration. Was it calculated? If so, Lómion had mistaken his man. Eärendil rose, went soft-footed through the chamber, to a half-open door. A brazier burned sweetly.

Lómion slept, one arm flung free of the coverlet, hair tossed over the pillows. He was confident enough to sleep unguarded in the same house as one whom had put a sword to his throat.  
Or so Eärendil thought until, with one swift, fluid movement, Lómion's hand swept down and reappeared holding a black sword. Its edges sang with silver. He uncoiled from the bed, clothed only in the flood of his hair, levelled the blade at Eärendil and said, “Well, dost thou want to kill me or kiss me?”

Eärendil's heart slammed against his chest.

The fire was down low, banked for the night, showing a cave of red heat. Despite the dream, relaxation held him cupped in warmth. The window showed a square of dim grey, blown leaves tapped against the glass, skittered away. He pushed back the blanket, came to his feet. His sword lay upon a side table and he ran a finger along the fuller, then grasped the hilt and picked it up. For a long moment he lingered, looking toward the half-open bedroom door. He could almost hear Lómion's unhurried breathing. Or thought he could. Could almost see the elegant beauty of his naked body.

His face burned, his loin surged with blood. He felt sick, hungry, and completely horrified by that hunger. Perhaps Lómion was right and he, all of them, were indeed all mad. It was more palatable explanation than the alternative.

He spun on his heels and walked to the balcony, into the lament of the night.

 

OooOooO


	65. ~ The Bell Tolls Fire ~

 

~ **The Bell Tolls Fire~**

 

~ Fëanor's eyes met his with a snap of fire Fingolfin would have called cold, save there was never anything cold about Fëanor. The look scorched against his eyes, inflamed his skin as he took his place at the long table. His position as High Councillor took him to a seat at Fëanor's right hand and he could feel his half-brother's rage, a living thing. It was not a comfortable place to be. Without thinking, he adopted the too-familiar pose of cool haughtier he had learned in Tirion, a second skin and one that, now, he despised having to wear. He had not even the secret pleasure of knowing it was a necessary lie.

He wanted to drag Fëanor to him, plunder his mouth with a brutal kiss, strip him of his formal clothes, strip himself of the fabric of lies and denial. But he had planned for this reaction, for exactly this. Fëanor was an irresistible force whom _had_ to be resisted. For both their sakes, and for all the Noldor.

Fëanor's sons were gathered behind him as was Celebrimbor. Celegorm had come with Finrod, whom had gone straight to his brother Orodreth.  
All of them looked at Fingolfin as he entered, but he could not see either relief or approval in their eyes. Rather, there was censure. Unbelievably, (at least to himself) he had _hurt_ Fëanor and that, politics or no, was unforgivable in their eyes.  
  
Turgon watched Fingolfin with a cool, wary expression as if he were not sure whether to believe the rumours of a schism. Fingon exchanged wordless glances with Maedhros that were not wordless at all. Fingon knew, of course, his own relationship with Maedhros coming under examination from those whom had ever looked askance. Let them disapprove, Fingolfin thought. That was one bond that could never be severed.

Fëanor shifted impatiently as the council seated themselves, though more than they alone had come, clustered within and without the great hall of the palace. Though not yet completed, there was greater space here for such meetings. Rising to his feet, Fëanor said without greeting or preface: “How many of thou didst see what happened between Vanimórë and Dana?”

Many of them, judging by the response, which was what Vanimórë had clearly intended. Gil-galad and Tindómion in Lindon had seen, as had Elladan and Elrohir in Imladris.

“Glorfindel has ringed this, our land, with power,” Fingolfin said. “but— ” he tilted a brow, and Glorfindel continued, “But she was invited here, and has been part of the Earth since before the Elves ever awoke, which means I am unsure how effective any wards of mine will be.”

“And we swore the Blood Kiss with her as witness,” Turgon said sardonically. Fingolfin bent a look of warning upon him.

But Fëanor waved a hand dismissively.  
“So? We bound ourselves to one another, not to her. And she was masquerading as the goddess of the Earth, which she is not. She would devour us. Thou didst hear her. We are _all_ to be her consorts.”

“She was speaking of a remote time and a ridiculously remote possibility,” Turgon shrugged. “Her words mean naught.”

“Thou didst ignore the words of a Power once before,” Fëanor pointed out, and Turgon's jaw set rigid. “Whether we like it or no, we should not ignore them again. Will we fear? No! But this time we must listen, and prepare. We will not be caged again, we will _never_ be owned. No-one will bind us against our will! But we will take very seriously any threat against us. And counter it. Yes, she speaks of a time after the Dagor Dagorath, but we all know, do we not, that we will take part in that battle. Tomorrow or a hundred Ages from now. Morgoth will never forget us.” His eyes dazzled as they swept the chamber. “Many died and knew the cold of the Halls of Waiting, others of us were banished to the Void, where Morgoth burns with hatred. We know death is not the end of anything, that he waits, that he will one day tear free of the chains that bind him and enter the world again.”  
“It was said, I have been told, both in Valinor and here in Middle-earth that Eärendil was the warden of the Doors of Night. Now we know that is not true, but legends have their own power, and Eärendil is no longer imprisoned. The truth is none of us know when the Dagor Dagorath will come, but we _do_ know that Morgoth is aware and seeks ingress into the world even now, and when that day comes there is nowhere he will not hunt for us, no place beyond his reach. The Valar will not be strong enough to stop him, and he will not settle for the destruction of our bodies, but would destroy our spirits also. And now we know Dana waits for him, and for us. She would not slay us but make us slaves.” He slammed on hand down flat on the marble before him. “I say we will accept neither fate. We will fight, we will triumph, and we will _win._ ”

Fingolfin's lips parted. Watching Fëanor speak was always mesmerising; there was a power in him that melted into blood and bone and mind and entranced it, set it alight. It recalled to him the mad, heady days of the Oath, before insanity sunk its claws into Fëanor and infected his mind, severing the great force that might, together, have brought Morgoth down.

But the Valar would never have permitted that victory, and Fingolfin believed that the whispers of treachery and disloyalty that hissed into his ears had the Valars tongues. And yet. Yet. There was a strange feeling of joy in the memory. Despite everything, Fingolfin had felt at one with Fëanor as he had not since the banishment. They had a common purpose, minds flowing one way. For a while.

Even Turgon's eyes had grown brighter as if he could not resist the clarion call of Fëanor's voice. He had been one of the most eager to leave Valinor, Fingolfin remembered, until Elenwë's death. But she was here now, sitting close to her husband. That, and only that had reconciled Turgon to Fëanor's rule, but his acceptance was stretched thin.  
  
“This place— ” Fëanor' gesture encompassed New Cuiviénen. “was given to us to heal, to live freely, a rich land where we might be at peace. But there will never be true peace for us until our enemies are defeated. They will always try to reach us. The Fell-wolves of last winter, the sorcerer in Angmar. All are fingers from the same hand: Morgoth's. That is why I will fight in Angmar, that is why I will fight Dana, or any-one who would conquer us.”

“Do we know what she might do?” Fingolfin asked, keeping his voice level. He put up his brows at Fëanor. “And didst thou make any kind of bond with her on the night of Nost-na-Lothion? It is something we should know.”

If he had thought that the question would discomfit Fëanor he would not have asked it except in private. He knew it would not, but it had burrowed into his mind that Fëanor had taken her (with a smile) before any-one. She had said, looking like Nerdanel, that it was _her_ night, that Fëanor must pay his dues to her. And he had.

Fëanor's eyes drove into his, lucent, furious. Fingolfin was so accustomed to hearing his mind-voice, teasing, challenging that the silence shocked him. Fëanor's mind was barred with fire, and Fingolfin had lost the right to question him.  
“No.” Fëanor imbued the one word with a weight of scorn. “I made no bond with her, promised her naught.” His eyes snapped away, returned as suddenly. “What of thee?”

Was he jesting? Fingolfin cursed himself for bringing such a dangerous subject to the table but he could not help himself replying through set teeth: “I did not have her. Why didst thou?” And braced for the inevitable, wounding response. He was certain he saw it form in Fëanor's thoughts, solidify on his tongue. Fingolfin had always been violently and helplessly jealous of Nerdanel, even long after there was any need.

“I had her so she would go and leave us in peace.” The outrgeous answer startled him and not only him. One of Fëanor's sons stifled a crack of laughter. “An argument with her would have spoiled the night for more than just me. Would it not?” His look flung a challenge right into Fingolfin's heart. “It meant naught to me. I did not even take any pleasure. It was nothing. So. Any-one else?” he asked. “No? Excellent.”

“What she considers a binding, and what we consider one is completely different,” Glorfindel said grimly.

“Yes, I saw, as did we all. She drew Vanimórë to her lair and bound him with rape.”

“And then she attempted to annihilate him with cruelty.” Glorfindel's eyes held white light at their centre. “And Varda did the same, not so long ago. They both missed their mark. He will never buckle under cruelty. But he would also kneel at her feet, as he knelt at Morgoth's and Sauron's, to save the life of one he loved. And I think many of us would also. There lies the danger.”

“Lindon?” Fingon said quickly. “Gil-galad and Tindómion are there and two thousand warriors. It would be easier for her to walk into their encampments than into New Cuiviénen or Imladris.”

“I have spoken with Tindómion and warned him,” Maglor said.

“And I am watchful,” Glorfindel told him gravely. “They know. Dana can change her shape — we saw that, also — but she would have to bury her true self very deep to escape notice. Every soul has its own individual...flavour. A Power has an even greater sense of _weight._ But we must all be wary. She may move in quick wrath to kill. It is a possibility. Or she may wait, plan.”

“If she kills,” Fëanor said, his voice vibrating with threat. “she would surely know every Elf's hand would be against her.”  
  
“Perhaps she would not care,” Fingolfin interposed. “as she means to be a mistress of slaves anyhow, what matter if we are willing or unwilling?”

Fëanor's eyes flicked back to him.  
“We are never going to be her slaves, nor Morgoth's either,” he said flatly, dismissively, then, frowning, he turned to Glorfindel. “And her attention seems fixed on Vanimórë, for now. Will she try to kill him?”

“She is afraid of him,” Curufin said with his knife-edged precision, calculating.  
  
“She is now. Vanimórë does not hurt women, but she should never have spoken of his mother and sister,” Glorfindel nodded.

“Móriel's son.” Fingolfin's words brought a sudden silence. Not many of them knew it, but they should, he judged. It made Vanimórë less alien, if anything could balance the weight of his heritage. “His sister?” he questioned.

Glorfindel was silent, his eyes seeking otherwhere. He made a small gesture.  
“Móriel bore twins,” he said quietly. “This is not something Vanimórë willingly speaks of, so I asked his permission. He adored his sister, and he killed her.” He raised a hand against the rustle of reaction. “It was after the fall of Nargothrond. Sauron was going to take her to Morgoth. She was very beautiful, but little more than a child. Vanimórë killed her, quickly, snapped her neck to save her from it. Morgoth had him, instead. Perhaps Sauron even planned it that way. It is at the root of Vanimórë's self-hatred: that he was not strong enough to do anything except take her life.”

Some-one breathed out an imprecation. Fëanor's hands, flat on the table, were pressed bloodless.  
“How dost thou know this?”  
  
“When I was in Fos Almir I knew everything, for a moment,” Glorfindel replied. “Past, present, future. And I understood. Much of it faded into the corners of my mind, because it is well nigh impossible to be of physical form and omnipotent. But there are things that do remain in my memory. That is one of them.”

Fingolfin had risen. He looked at Maglor, whose expression brooded, dark and yearning, his head half turned away from the brutal words.

“Where is she?” Fëanor asked. “In Lórien? Surely her soul was not banished to the Everlasting Dark.” But there was a question in the words.  
  
“I do not know where she is.” Glorfindel's brows were drawn. “But she was not in the Void, and neither is she in Valinor.”

“Art thou saying that Vanimórë did _not_ kill her?” Maglor asked. “And he has lived all his life believing he did?” Puzzlement and outrage wound like serpents into his voice.  
  
“No. He did kill her. I saw it. But after? I saw nothing. I did look for her, when we were in Aman. I spoke to Irmo. It seemed to me that if Vanimórë could meet her, it would at least lay balm on an ancient wound, it would be _something_ , even if he could never forgive himself for the act. But Irmo had never seen nor heard of her. I know exactly whom was imprisoned in the Void.” Glorfindel shook his head. “The shadow of Morgoth lies over her, and Sauron's too. It is as if she does not exist either living or dead.”

“And Vanimórë knows this?” The thought of non-existence was unendurable to Fingolfin, whom had imagined Fëanor trapped in the Dark, so far beyond his reach. Although not, as it turned out, so very far. He only had to die to reach him.

“No.” Glorfindel looked at Fingolfin. “He thinks she is in Lórien, with her mother. But he will not go there.” He pushed a glinting gold braid over his shoulder. “His mind, when he thinks of his sister...it is as if it drops into a crevasse filled with mist, and below the mist are iron spikes that impale him with guilt and grief. The same shadow that lies on her. It is ancient sorcery, a spell cast upon him when he was very young. It repels him so that all he can fall back on is his desire, his _obsession_ that she be safe. He demands that she must be. And so he believes that she is.”

“Does Dana know this?” Fëanor asked.

“I do not know. If she does, perhaps she feared his reaction. It might drive him mad, and he is far too dangerous to fall into madness.”

Several eyes swung towards Fëanor, including Fingolfin's. Fëanor did not appear to notice. Naturally.  
“Thou art not going to tell him thyself, art thou? No.” He straightened, and Fingolfin watched his fierce, flowing movements with equally furious delight. But his rage was directed against himself. The delight was just how it was and had ever been. He said, “What is his fate, Glorfindel? She said he had no purpose but her.”

“Is he going to become the next Dark Lord?” Caranthir was never one to wrap his words in gold leaf. But that was not what prompted Fingolfin's question.

“He is seeking purpose. I observe him. Not all of what Dana said was wholly wrong, although it was malicious.” There was wine at the table. Glorfindel poured a cup, slid the jug toward Fingolfin. The gathering moved to drink. “Ages of service have left their mark. He has lived without Sauron before, but never without knowing he would return. To one whom has not known it, freedom can be a burden. He seeks to do something worthwhile, to put his hands to some task. Sooner or later, he will go into the south, find a city or land to rule as he ruled Sud Sicanna. That is not a purpose but something he knows he can do. I do not know what his fate is, Fingolfin, but as for becoming another Dark Lord or rather, a Dark God? It is possible.”

“That is a thing he would fight against,” Maglor said almost sharply.  
  
“I know he would,” Glorfindel agreed. “But there is so much anger in him, so much pain and despair. Thou hast seen only a glimpse of it, and he would not have let us see even that had it not been important. He will try to rule well and wisely, try to change the world of Men. And, because Men go their own way, he will fail and then he will be alone.”

“He has Elgalad,” Maglor said. “Vanimórë would never harm him. I saw him when Elgalad died. So didst thou.” His voice shook a little.

“He would never harm him _knowingly_.”

“Glorfindel,” Fëanor spoke impatiently. “Was Dana right when she said that Vanimórë would kill him? I cannot see why. Thou art as Vanimórë and have never harmed thy lovers.”

“I have not, but I could.” Glorfindel cast him a clear blue look. “But I am used to having lovers, and I am not Vanimórë. He could probably count on one hand the times he lay with some-one and felt more than a passing pleasure.” (Fingolfin could not forbear a glance at Maglor, whose long lashes swept down). “And he _wants_ so badly. The hunger of Ages. Dana was right in that he is empty within, but such great emptiness would need an equally great love to fill it, and not spiritual love alone, though that too. But he is too sensual, too sexual for that to content him. Or he was, until she took it from him.” And Fingolfin knew how that would feel; it had happened to him when Fëanor left Tirion to wander Aman and beget his children. It was a kind of death, an emptiness in his being. Glorfindel continued: “I have told him no harm would come to Elgalad, but now I am not sure. Morgoth and Dana both took from him, giving nothing but pain. And let us not forget Sauron who used him for Ages. Elgalad offers himself, his body, and complete love. If Vanimórë seeks to fill his need with some-one who adores him, some-one he actually _wants_..? He let the question spin into silence.

Fëanor said, “Is the kind of man whom will only take? Suck others dry like a leech? His actions do not seem to support that notion.”  
  
If any-one would know that, Fingolfin thought, it would be Maglor. Maglor who did not want his father to know of that time in Barad-dûr, out of shame for his weakness, (what weakness? What shame?) for fear of his father's anger, and that, Fingolfin knew, was a valid fear. Fëanor had reason now to be grateful to Vanimórë, but if the truth were to be known, the knowledge that Maglor had been _forced_ , no matter that the excuse was to save his life, would ignite his hatred. He hated very well; he made enemies of gods, and his control over his temper was less than Fingolfin had judged. Much of what he had believed control was overwhelming relief at being reunited with his sons. Beneath that, he was unchanged.

But Maglor had shifted, his lips parting as if to speak. Fingolfin saw Maedhros touch his arm in silent support, but Glorfindel's voice, rich with old memory said, “Oh, he knows how to give. Profligately. But with so much dammed inside him for so long, I wonder if he could help taking too much? He is controlled. Unnaturally so. He cages himself, wraps himself in steel. But could he control himself with some-one he hungers for? Could any-one? And should any-one have to?”  
  
Maedhros' fingers had tightened on Maglor's arm, whose face had been moulded into hard white stone.  
  
“Will he become a danger to us?” Turgon shattered the quiet. “Whom is more perilous to us? Dana, or Vanimórë?”

“I do not know what Dana's powers are. Neither does Vanimórë.” Glorfindel's eyes went distant in another moment of private communion. “She hides them too well, seems to use them only when she wishes. She can see into Angmar, but do nothing. Perhaps.” His mouth hardened. “Or perhaps she does not wish to become involved. To her, all is a matter of waiting until Morgoth returns. Vanimórë...” He shook his head infinitesimally. “He has vast experience of war, of rulership, and can make men follow him with a look. If he were to take Morgoth's place, he could be even more dangerous.”  
  
“Then we will have to make sure he does not take Morgoth's place,” Fëanor said with his dangerous, glittering smile, apparently unperturbed. “I owe him. He saved Maglor's life. I have no quarrel with him, but I have one with Morgoth and Sauron. I would prefer it if no-one got in the way, not Vanimórë and not Dana.”

His sons faces blazed as Fingolfin had seen them when Fëanor spoke the Oath. But a blast of the selfsame fire rose upward from his feet, scorching its way upward.  
“Thou art not the only one with a personal quarrel against Morgoth.” A snarl bloomed in his voice. Fëanor whirled to face him, flashed back: “It is the duty of the high king to take on his people's burdens, to fight for them!”  
  
The air between them crackled and spat like water on heated iron.

“As it was mine.” Fingon had moved to his side. “There must be no doomed madness this time, Fëanor. For the sake of all our people.”

Fëanor _burned_ at him, and Fingolfin saw him struggle against lashing out. His sons shifted closer to him, and his eyes flicked to them. His chest heaved, then he said, enunciating each word as if he engraved it in granite: “Previous errors will not be repeated,” he said.”None of them.”

And Fingolfin heard the death-knell of love.  
  


OooOooO

  



	66. ~ From Behind The Mask ~

**From Behind The Mask**

 

Vanimórë's eyes were unfocussed, a tiny frown on his brow as he spoke mind-to-mind with Glorfindel. Elgalad watched his face and yearned to comfort him but he knew now, as he had not in the days of his youth, that when the hurt is so old, so deep, when one is so damaged even love cannot heal it.

With Dana's vanishing, the storm had calmed. Elgalad unbarred the shutters and cool air stole in, banishing the lingering reek of attar. He took a deep breath. Water dripped from the shingles above, a calming chime, but reaction still seethed in his breast. He had known anger before, but nothing like this. He felt burnt by it, as if lava replaced blood in his veins.

He opened his pack, drew out a flask of emberwine that he had harboured against need and cut the wax sealing it. Pouring a generous measure, he waited, watching Vanimórë's face by the light of the small candle. Nothing about it had changed, it was still as hard, as beautiful as ever, but Elgalad had learned to see below the surface.  
Vanimórë radiated bone-deep shame.

It was unendurable.

Elgalad had never considered himself violent. Battle-rage was different, and he loathed orcs, as did all Elves, but it was not an all-consuming hate that shaped his days.  
This was.  
He wanted to break Dana as savagely as she had broken something in Vanimórë. (something that was already broken and had been, time and again) There had to be a _reckoning_. No god, no power should be able to act unchecked, fearing nothing. But had not Morgoth and then Sauron done just that for thousands of years? True, they had fallen, but too late. Far too late.  
So would Dana. She deserved no more pity than they, had worn a mask for thousands of years. Tonight she had ripped it away herself, and what was beneath was vile.

Elgalad did not intrude upon Vanimórë's space while he communicated, but waited until the violet eyes became present again and he moved, a sigh passing his lips. When his head turned, Elgalad offered him the cup. With a faint, fleeting smile, Vanimórë took it, sipped and handed it back.  
“I think thou needest this also,” he said.

Elgalad made a little show of drinking, and pressed the rest into Vanimórë's hands.  
“Does every-one know?” he asked.  
  
“Those who need to.” He pushed long fingers through his loose hair, lifting it away from his face, looked deeply, curiously into Elgalad's eyes.  
“Thou wert not afraid.”  
  
“No,” Elgalad agreed. “I know thou doth think I love too deeply, but I can hate, also.” He moved closer, took the empty cup from Vanimórë and replaced it with his hand. “It is useless to tell thee to forget what she said, I know. But she is poison. She sought to hurt thee, to have thee crawl at her feet, _worship_ her. Thou, whom art so much more than she could ever comprehend or deserve.” His grip tightened. “And do not tell me it does not matter.”

Vanimórë's expression shaded into a haunting gentleness.  
“It does not, my dear. Not as much as thou wouldst think. It is nothing in the light of what I have done. I woke a monster that should have been left sleeping. She was subtle, and I was so accustomed to the power of Melkor, of Sauron, that I could not recognise her as dangerous.”  
  
“She ensured thou didst not.”  
  
“And yet I should have been more suspicious. I had no trust or love for any Power. I thought her merely a voluptuary with few ambitions, a comfort to other women. But never mind that. I have to think of what I will do about her _now._ ”  
  
“Canst thou destroy her?”

The question earned him a sharp look. “No god can ever be truly destroyed. I could slay her physical form. Melkor did.” He moved his hands, cupping Elgalad's shoulders, skimming down his arms. “Sometimes I do not know thee at all. I always think thee as a gentle soul, but now thou hast the look of ice about thee, and speaking to her...not only what thou didst say but the way thou didst say it.”  
  
“She tried to destroy thee with her words.” Elgalad felt fury sweep through him again, high, cold, like a wind flowing far above the earth. It tasted of ice and blood. Justice. “She knew just where to strike. She knew where thou art vulnerable and did not hesitate to use that knowledge. She took part of thee away. Thou wilt forgive me if I do not feel any... _gentleness_ or mercy towards her.”  
  
A smile bent one corner of Vanimòrë's mouth.  
“I thank thee,” he said with a distinct twinkle in his eye, a sign that his sense of humour had survived. “I am not accustomed to thy defence of me.”

Or of any-one defending thee, Elgalad thought. He cast down his eyes to hide the flicker of annoyance in them. Vanimórë thought it was amusing, like a child standing up to an armed warrior, pugnacious, defiant — and quite useless should that warrior choose to kill him.  
  
Vanimórë's hand tipped his chin up.  
“No,” he said. “Forgive me. I do not think that. It is only that I held thee when thou wert born and took thy first breath. I watched thee take thy first steps. To have thee leap to my defence is...so strange...”

“I am not that child,” Elgalad murmured, charmed almost against his will by that rich voice. “Nor am I the only one who would defend thee. She was banished.”  
  
“Yes,” Vanimórë said slowly with a touch of bemusement.

“Whatever Dana said. Whatever thou dost think, there are those who love thee.”

The smile had died, leaving the beautiful face more remote than ever. He drew away gently.  
“I took her into New Cuiviénen.” Elgalad felt a prickle of frustration; Vanimórë had skimmed over his words as if they meant nothing. “Perhaps she would have gone anyhow, but I gave her an easy way in. I might as well have given Orodreth into her hands myself. Glorfindel took him from the temple in Sud Sicanna while she was here.” His hands fisted. “Traitor he may have been, but he would not bow to her, and so she used him, as her women did.” He bent his head.

“That blame does not lie on thy shoulders,” Elgalad said with a thrill of horror. “Thou didst not know about her.”

“I should have!” Vanimórë struck a fist against the wall.

“How? Until Fos Almir thou wert not as powerful as she.”  
  
Vanimórë shook his head, his lips pressed taut.  
“She knows I have always been bound against my will. How could she believe that being shackled to her would be acceptable? Her plaything, just as I was Melkor's and Sauron's.” Elgalad saw the shudder pass through him. He felt again the touch of Dana's fingers on his face. It brought a flood of distaste into his mouth as if some huge many-legged beast had crawled over him. He refilled the cup with emberwine. Vanimórë, with a glance at his face, insisted he drink first.

“I want to say she is too lazy to succeed in her ambitions,” he said after he had swallowed. “But it is not laziness. She is waiting, that is all. I will not underestimate her again. I only wish I knew if her temper is such as to attack soon or to wait.”

“Canst thou see her mind?”

“I have tried. It leads me into a labyrinth. She is older than I, Elgalad, even though she is not whom she claimed to be, but a thing birthed out of Melkor's destruction of the young Earth. Perhaps there are others like her. But she has writ her own destiny. And it must never come to pass. Now, how pragmatic is she?” he wondered. “Does she think she can still use me?”

“She will want thee, one way or another.” If not willingly, then as a prisoner. Elgalad had seen the obsession in her eyes, heard her words. She believed she owned Vanimórë and such a belief, rooted in the Ages, would not easily be discarded.  
  
“And she could make me dance to her piping so easily,” Vanimórë nodded. He touched Elgalad's cheek, a flying caress that traced love into his skin. “We will all have to be careful.” And then with sudden fierceness, he drew Elgalad into his arms. His heart was still beating hard, fast. Elgalad returned the embrace, tight, close, smelling sandalwood and leather. He felt, always, as if he was home but more (and far more deeply) as if _Vanimórë_ was home.

He could not control his body's reaction, a surge of heat that sent hot blood to his loins and hardened him. The arousal brought with it mental images that would have shocked those who saw no further than his face and his 'gentleness'.  
He had never been this close to Vanimórë and not felt the answering response, rigid as iron. Now, there was nothing. Elgalad 's mind flashed white and cold with rage.

“I am sorry,” Vanimórë murmured. “I love thee. She has only taken my desire.”

“Do not _thou_ apologise.” Elgalad drew back enough to look into Vanimórë's beautiful, blasted eyes. “It is _cruel_. In one thing she was right. It _is_ part of what thou art, and she stole it.”

“That is the very least of my problems.” Vanimórë smiled, faint as a shadow in a tomb. “It has happened before.”

“Anything and everything done to thee against thy will is important,” Elgalad told him. “ _Thou_ art important.”

He hated Vanimórë's laughter. Not because it was harsh or mocking, but because it was the wine-rich chuckle he loosed when genuinely amused.  
“I am a god,” he said. “So I suppose I must be.”  
  
“Hush.” Elgalad laid his hands over Vanimòrë's mouth. “I would have thee do one thing for me.”

_If I can, my dear._

“Lie down with me, and sleep.”

To his surprise, Vanimórë did not refuse. Elgalad could read the weariness of spirit within him as clear as if it were inked on his skin, had seen it throughout their journey, and it was not a simple tiredness of the body, easy to remedy with rest. This was something far more insidious, a dragging weight on his soul. Dana's punishment sucked at him like a leech and behind her stood Malantur, Sauron, Melkor. They had, all of them, _taken_ , and Elgalad could see what Vanimórë could not: the immense, dark-brilliant energy that they had fed upon. Vanimórë replenished himself with defiance and a determination to _live_ and not merely exist, but it had taken its toll.

Elgalad put aside his desires, wrapped his arms and heart about Vanimórë, feeling the long, hard muscles against his, the slippery flood of black hair. He inhaled the exotic sandalwood that always seemed to cling to Vanimórë's hair, the tormenting musk of his skin. Neither of them said anything and for a long time Vanimórë remained tensely awake. His shame was a potent thing, red and hot about him.

_I will hold him against thee,_ Elgalad flung as a challenge, and thought he heard a hiss out of the dark. He wanted to set his lips against Vanimórë's and drink all his hurt, but that touch would only bring more shame. So Elgalad held him, held a world of pain and courage and beauty. He gathered his love until it swelled in his breast and there came a sensation as of light, breaking, and he breathed the glitter of diamonds. Vanimórë's body relaxed, his breath took on the rhythm of sleep.  
  
“No dreams,” Elgalad murmured, soft into his hair. “No memories. Not this night.” _And I wish it could be so forever._  
  
He wanted Vanimórë oblivious not only because he desperately needed it, but so that he, Elgalad, could think without Vanimórë's powerful mind brushing his. Vanimórë did not pry into other's minds unless he needed to, considering it an impertinence but, inevitably, he picked up thoughts, emotions, and Elgalad could not risk that. He had exposed too much of himself tonight, and seen the questions Vanimórë did not as: “Why didst thou not stammer? Why wert thou not afraid of Dana? Why wert thou so unlike thyself?”  
  
But he had not been unlike himself; it was whom he was under the layers and layers he wore. Had to wear. Had chosen to.  
  


OooOooO

He had not remembered at first, was not supposed to, at least in theory, but his metamorphosis had been incalculable; there were no certainties. And he _had_ forgotten for a time, had been, even to himself, an orphaned Elf raised by a man whom had come to mean _life_ and strength, comfort and, always, love. He had grown up adoring Vanimórë, trusting him utterly and, as he eased through the years toward adulthood, that love had taken on a different hue, coloured with desire.

And then Vanimóre had abandoned him.  
 _“Thou wilt die in untold agonies if thou doth stay with me. I am ordered to take thee to my Master, each year since thy birth the command has grown stronger. And I cannot save thee from him. He would kill thee before mine eyes.”_

Elgalad had heard the words, and not understood them, nor wanted to accept them. All he knew was the heartbreak the shock of abandonment, that had driven him into dogged pursuit, into the hands of the Nazgûl, and haunted Dol Guldur.

The Nazgûl's blow to his head had sent him slamming into unconsciousness. And then...  
  
Alabaster colonnades ran away into infinity, towers reached so impossibly high into the sky that they pierced the drifts of ice-crystal clouds. Gardens and parkland rolled across a thousand leagues, palaces sprawled over half a world. Forested mountains cast their shadows across the face of a titanic moon. A giant ringed planet filled the sky. The colours were vivid, stainless, a warm breeze carried the scent of flowers that had never grown on Arda, and some that did.

A fantasy. As real as...a thought. They looked and imagined, created their own wonders in the eyeblink of a god that could last...how long? A million ages. More. Time had no meaning here unless the minds of its inhabitants locked themselves into it so that the physical worlds beyond could be measured and understood. Such an exercise was, if not difficult, constraining, forcing them into boundaries that were alien to them, thus few cared to essay it. But there were some who had. They were long gone, or as long as it took to glance over one's shoulder at the place they had been. It could feel like moments, or like forever. There were still shadows flung long where they had trodden.  
  
But in another way, they did count Time — the time-that-was-not before the physical universe and the time after it. They had wanted to see the visions of their mind made manifest, and so the universe had begun in energy immeasurable, chaotic, violent. Where there had been nothing, or rather, something _else_ , space expanded, rushing outward.  
  
Melkor had seen that it needed something to bind it together, wanted to bring order to the hot, young universe so that life could come into being. He was not content to observe. He reached into one of the other innumerable universes and pulled gravity into their own chosen one. Gravitational forces drew suns, galaxies together and their stately dance meshed into a kiss that brought _life_.  
  
Some of them rose up then, raging at Melkor's interference. Unwarranted, they called it, a rebellion against Eru's will and their own dreamed creation, not realising that Melkor had done exactly what he was supposed to. That was _his_ part in the Music. Without him, there would have been no life at all, only entropy. (The essence of irony, that) In other realities there was none. But this was the one they had chosen to bring forth and, with that decision, they became bound to it.

It took one step for Elgalad (and that was not his name, here) to forget Vanimórë, Middle-earth, his life there. It took one more for him to remember.  
  
This should not have happened.

His coming had been felt and the lovely, empty gardens and hallways began to fill with gods. Men, women, both, genderless, all colours, all races of Earth, whatever they had imagined for themselves when Eru dreamed Arda. They had, all of them, fallen at least a little in love with the forms of the Children. They stared, then fell back as great silver-white wings shimmered into being and Elgalad launched himself into the air. Pure whimsy, but the feeling was glorious and one he had missed.

Far away, a mountain rose. It would have dwarfed Taniquetil in Valinor, (which was indeed a copy) but served the same purpose: it was the dwelling place of Power. If the Timeless Halls had needed an atmosphere like Arda, this mountain would have driven its peak through it. Unlike Taniquetil, no snow lay upon it. Its slopes bore forest and rivers, cliffs and green alps. From the topmost spike to the roots a waterfall plunged endlessly. Rainbows arced mistily down its length. Elgalad soared up the ceaseless pour and pour, feeling the spray on his face. The air was filled with thunder.  
  
Eru's palace was different each time he saw it. Now it gleamed like nacre, delicate spires tipped with silver. Its scale was too massive for any-one but a god but Eru's presence filled it, and all the Timeless Halls.  
  
His presence. For he had never shown a physical form, yet Elgalad felt his love as if he stood in the centre of a giant star.

_I should not have remembered_ he said. _And thou wert right. I could not know, without living, how difficult this would be._.

He had been born an Elf, his native powers, what he truly was, barred from his mind. For a time he had indeed forgotten everything— except the love.

  
Elgalad tightened his arm about Vanimórë's waist, pressed a kiss into his hair. Dana said she had dreamed him. Perhaps, but so had Elgalad, so had Eru in the time-before-time. There were some among the Children who existed in every possible reality. Melkor was one, as was Sauron, the House of Finwë another. Vanimórë too, appeared in all of them. And, in all but one, he had succumbed either to darkness or death.

Elgalad had looked on Vanimórë's foreshadowing, and been consumed by love. The feeling was colossal and...strange. He would have said, and truthfully, that he loved his sibling gods, loved Eru, but that feeling was nothing like the fire that burned up in his spirit when he saw Vanimórë.  
 _I know thee. I have been waiting for thee._  
  
 _This one must conquer his life,_ Eru said. _He needs love, and yet will never believes he deserves it._

Out of the furnace within him, Elgalad had declared, “I love him.”

_Yes, my dear, I know._ Eru's voice sounded sorrowful.

“I have...woken,” Elgalad had said, when they were alone. “I _know_ him.”

_Thou hast known him in an infinite number of universes. In each one, thou hast loved him. And in each one he has been lost. Look._

This was the only reality, Eru said, where Vanimórë might not fall, and even that was in doubt. In some they became implacable enemies, fighting a war across Arda that devastated it more thoroughly than the War of Wrath. Or Vanimórë had died in his mother's womb, or was born a monstrosity, kept chained as an animal in Barad-dûr to remind Sauron of his failure. Morgoth had killed him, Sauron had killed him. He had died in battle or at the hands on an assassin. Glorfindel slew him, or Maglor, orcs or trolls or wolves. In a few he had become a god, but a dark god who sought to rule the world, slaughtering the last of the Elves who remained in Middle-earth. All ways had been closed, save this one.

_This universe is the perfect crucible. In this one, he must survive._

Elgalad had been born into Middle-earth, without power or memory until the Nazgûl woke him to it, flung him back to the Timeless Halls. But there had been no question in his mind that he would return to Arda, to Vanimórë. Eru asked him. _It is, and will always be thine own decision. It will not become easier._

“I know it,” Elgalad replied. “Of course I will go back.”

A sensation as of the brush of a hand down his cheek.  
 _I do not think I can close off thy memories again. Forgetfulness is unnatural for us._

“I know very well that Vanimórë cannot forget anything. Why should I?”

Because to know what he was and be unable to use his power to do anything tore him apart again and again. But Eru's warning echoed against the walls of his mind: In a million universes he had intervened— or tried to. And lost Vanimórë regardless. There was one (he could not think of it without horror) where Vanimórë was the only being to exist, having subsumed and devoured all life and was, himself, the Void, which was all that was left. He was everlastingly alone, imprisoned in a cage of his own creation, and there was nothing remotely human or recognisable about him. There was no salvation, no hope of rescue or comfort or aid. And the god-void-universe that had once been Vanimórë knew it somewhere under the depths of madness. Even as a god himself, Elgalad recoiled when Eru showed him that vision.  
  
 _He must come to a terrible power and an even more terrible compassion,_ Eru told him.

When Elgalad woke in the guts of Dol Guldur, he wondered, through the pounding headache and the gut-churning nausea that followed, how Vanimórë would react to finding him changed. He could not know the truth; that was unthinkable, but Elgalad was not the young Elf whom had followed his beloved protector into Mirkwood. He was a god born into Elven flesh, and now he knew he was.

Then, with a shock of icy terror, he realised that he had almost fallen into a trap that had claimed him in other worlds. Breathing like a man who finds himself on the brink of a deadly fall, he knew that he could _not_ reveal his true self. It was not enough to hide his powers, he must conceal _everything._ Vanimórë loved Elgalad's _innocence_ , saw him as untouched. Pure. And that was what he wanted. He had abandoned Elgalad because he had no choice, but the love of the child was precious to him, and he would hold it to his heart. He might consider it a weakness, but he was so deprived of love that even hero-worship was sweet water to his parched soul.  
  
And so Elgalad buried himself into the persona of...Elgalad. Even in Mirkwood, he could not let the mask drop, had to push his true self so far away he could barely see the edge of its bright shadow. He developed a stammer, an apparent reaction to the trauma of Dol Guldur, when he could have destroyed it and the Nazgûl with one flick of a thought. But interference was strictly forbidden. Elgalad's sojourn in Middle-earth was contingent upon his not using power. He could do nothing but _love_

It was a rule he had broken time and again. He had always broken it.  
Eru warned him: _Thou wilt not be able to bear what he suffers, what others suffer. And thou also will be harmed. But thou must bear it, notwithstanding. His life is forged upon the anvil of the gods. Either he will fall, or he will not. If thou wouldst see him conquer, thou must withhold._

Eru had been right, Elgalad could not bear it. Later, after Vanimórë's apotheosis, he watched as the man he loved learned what it was to have power and be unable to use it. Well did he understand the frustration and rage of inaction. But power was a beacon he could not afford to light.

Yet he could not regret his choice. He felt that he had not truly lived until he was born onto Arda, until he knew grief and pain and anger and love, until he was helpless and wounded and afraid. The gods might know anger, but they did not fear wound or disease or death. They could mesh with the stars, ride the tail of a comet, drift into the glory of nebulae and bask in the explosion of a supernova. With a thought, they could create worlds to live within where decay and death were unknown. But they were strangers to the earthy sensuousness of living within a human body, of thirst or need for sustenance or rest. Of the terrible beauty of desire.

Sex of itself was not alien to the gods. When they wore forms they wished to experiment with them. But it was not the same, not even close. Theirs was a light-hearted exploration of pleasure, no more; there was no real passion, no jealousy, no true desire. Love there was, but it was a rarefied fondness, not a conflagration. Elgalad had come to believe that for the gods to truly live they must _live_ He himself had known everything. And understood nothing.  
  
Understanding had come with all its attendant emotions, filling the gaps of his ignorance. He had loved Vanimórë on first seeing him, but could never have known or imagined what the cost would be. He had not reckoned it, nor could he until he had lived. He paid it in the coin of helplessness and anguish and rage.

As for his power, supposedly inaccessible, it seeped through like water through porous stone. It was almost negligible, frustratingly so; he felt like a hooded hawk, blind and tethered when every instinct called him to fly. Even so, it was enough, and it tempted. It demanded a supreme effort of will to reject it, to pretend he was Elgalad, and the desire to use it tested him time and again.

But, and despite Eru's warning, he _had_ used power, albeit inadvertently, a handful of times. He had also deliberately pushed the doorway of fate. It was not so simple as non-interference, that much he had come to understand, it was _how_ he interfered. A Mirkwood-trained warrior would never have been so foolish as to run into a Vanimórë's blade when he and Maglor fought in Lindon. Vanimórë himself would never have killed Elgalad, his reflexes were too finely honed.

At other times Elgalad had played into the hands of events. He could have freed himself from the wolfsheads who captured him, would not even have had to use any power. But he had not. Long before, he had allowed Malthador to bully him in Mirkwood, almost kill him in Imladris. At times, when duty took him to Esgaroth, he had seen travelling mummers, and never seen any who could match him, who lived behind a mask of vulnerability and sweetness – save in battle, which confused those who witnessed his transformation. Even then, he was careful. Dana had worn a mask, too. Elgalad's was a far more impenetrable one.

(He had wondered, as the years fell one into another, if Elgalad was real at all or an artificer's doll, empty and soulless, a thing that existed only as a vessel for a god and if, when he died, there would be nothing, no spirit with the name of Elgalad, nothing to show that he had lived and loved and wept, laughed and warred. Sometimes, Elgalad felt like a different being entirely. There were, it seemed, mysteries even a god's mind could not fathom).

But he was beginning to let the mask slip. When Coldagnir brought Zeva out of Carn Dûm and when, later, he had lain with Coldagnir and walked in power through the halls of Utumno. That had been a risk, the banished ones in the Void were too close. He felt their minds straining against the barrier which separated them from the world. If they should look at him, they must see only Elgalad, an Elf, loved (he believed and hoped) by Vanimórë but no more than that. One of the first things he had done consciously with his power was in Dol Guldur, drawing a veil over himself to deflect too close a scrutiny.

Vanimórë slept as one whom sleep has eluded too often. In their true form and home, gods needed no rest, but when embodied even they succumbed to the weariness of Time. His long limbs were heavy, his breathing slow. He seemed to absorb the utter relaxation as a long-dry land drinks rain. A westering moon broke through the storm-rack of clouds and painted a path of silver light through the open shutters onto Vanimórë's hair. It shone like liquid darkness.

Vanimórë was Elgalad's deepest love and his responsibility, but he had known before time began that Vanimórë was but one piece in a vast cosmic game, although to call it a game stripped it of importance. Yet it was one, a game of fate and chance and power of gods and Men and Elves. Whether Eru had begun it or it had spun out of the creation of Time, Elgalad did not know, but every-one played it, witting or unwitting, both the living and the dead.  
  
“What is his fate?” he had asked Eru, not knowing then and not knowing now.

And Eru had said, “To make his own.”

 

OooOooO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those of you who read the few chapters of 'Weapons of the Gods' when it was up. (which is going to be Magnificat IV: Anvil) may find some of this a bit familiar.


	67. ~ The Legacy Of Lies ~

  


**~ The Legacy Of Lies ~**

 

It would be a brief and mild winter for Lindon and Imladris, with only a few cold snaps of weather to lighten the mild, windy grey, and the day of Tuor and Idril's arrival was one of those, bright and bitter. It had grown still and foggy, then chill, and hoar frost rimed tree and bush. When the veils of fog thinned, they glittered like a million diamonds, and the air cut hard against the back of the throat.

It cut hard against Lómion's. Tuor and Idril had sent no messengers ahead to announce their arrival, but they had been seen by scouts and were expected. Elladan and Elrohir had spoken to Lómion and to Aredhel whom, as she had prowled the gardens this morning, looked likely to attack any-one who so much as looked askance at her son. At last, and to Lómion's relief, Fanari took her off to the archery range. There was something of a friendly rivalry between them. Aredhel had taught Fanari to use a bow, long ago.

It left him alone to consider. Tuor and Idril's visit placed the _peredhil_ and indeed all Imladris, in an invidious position because they had accepted Lómion. Or been forced to. He did not think now, that he had been overlooked. He was rather inclined to the belief that Glorfindel had wrought some kind of power upon the Imladrians who remained, to blunt their anger. Lómion might not be related to any of them save the twins, or have caused the deaths of those they loved but he was, nonetheless, a traitor to the Noldor. It was not possible that he should be forgiven so easily.  
  
Still, he had eased his way into the life of the valley, made a place for himself, but he would leave Imladris without argument if he had to. Better that than for the valley to be ripped apart by old wounds. But he would not leave before Tuor and Idril had said what they had come so far to say. He had earned the name of traitor, and Eärendil had called him craven. Perhaps he had earned that, also, but he would not flee.

He waited for them.

The snap of hooves fell sharp in the cold air as the horses clattered across the bridge. Looking down he could just see the last of them before the buildings hid them from view. The riders wore blue and white: Tuor's colours.

The valley seemed to close in on itself as the hoofbeats drew to a halt. He imagined an indrawn breath. But he exhaled, leaving a misty plume in the air, and went quickly down the stairs.

He expected to be left alone to confront them, either that or mobbed by the Imladrians when the blinkers were torn from their eyes. Beleg was not here, had been away from the valley since mid-autumn. He had met with the strange twins, Elúred and Elúrin and Daeron, whom of course he knew from Doriath, and they were hunting like wolves on the borders of Angmar. While Imladris was spared the harsh weather, it was reported that snow and frigid winds lashed the icy crown of Carn Dúm.

Beleg had promised Túrin he would be back for Midwinter. The child missed him, but seemed content enough with Fanari and Rosriel, and often ran after Lómion, hands upheld. They watched for the soul-wounds of his abuse to manifest — and hoped they would not, but he had become silent, shy. He dreamed, sometimes, Fanari said, and she or Rosriel (or Beleg when he was there) would tell him tales to distract him. He loved old tales, this child whom, in his other life, had trodden the path of one of the most tragic. And, one day, he would remember it.

Servants were taking the horses when Lómion walked into the courtyard. As their glossy backs parted he saw, for the first time since his death, the faces of Tuor and Idril.

They were pallid in a way that had nothing to do with their fair skins. Idril's hair had lost its yellow shade and was blanched to the shade of parched straw. A frown pinched deep between their narrow brows. Tuor looked...not old, but as if his Mortal blood had desiccated within him. Lómion was reminded of Vanimórë's talk of Malantur, the sorcerer of Angmar, how he would disintegrate into mortality with Sauron's power gone. Their followers, fewer than Lómion had thought, were expressionless. He recognized some of them from Gondolin.

With a sweep of jewelled black hair, Elladan and Elrohir arrived from the main house. They walked in time with each other, faces aloof and vibrant. When set against the bleached pallor of the arrivals, they were almost impossibly vivid, and though they bore both Tuor's blood and Idril's they reminded Lómion most strongly of Fingolfin. Their glass-grey eyes flashed across to his. He could read nothing in them.  
  
Before they could speak, as if pulled by his silent regard, Idril looked around, straight at Lómion. Then with a swirl of heavy riding skirts, she strode across the courtyard, face contracted like a boxer's fist.  
  
Before she could reach him Eärendil was there. Lómion had not seen him come. His topaz-gold hair was formally braided and he was dressed like a prince in deep blue and black. He looked very different from the man whom had challenged Lómion in the baths, then fallen into exhausted sleep on his settle. Lómion had not seen him again until now.  
“ _Mother,_ ” Eärendil said sharply, catching her hand.  
  
She spun around to face him. The inward tear of her breath was loud in the crackling silence.  
“Eärendil.” Her mouth worked, showed a gritting of teeth. Her chest heaved and Lómion thought she was struggling against some inner compulsion, thought, for a heartbeat of time, that she would embrace her son as she should, as she had when he was a child. Then the moment was gone. She said, clipped, icy: “Glorfindel showed us that thou wert here. Brought from Vingilot by a _demon_ , by one of those who ravaged Gondolin. Madness! Thou wert given the highest honour the Valar could bestow. _Release my hand_!”

“He will return, of course,” Tuor said sternly, joining them, laying a hand on his wife's back so that her head turned toward him like a hound's. “Wilt thou not, my son? He knows where his duty lies.”

“Thou wouldst have him go back into a prison? Something worse than a prison?” Lómion demanded. “Into a nightmare? The Valar might as well have marked thee as a wolf marks its territory. I can smell them on thee from here.”

Idril's slim wrist slipped from her son's grip, and she flung herself at Lómion, a dagger rising in the winter sun, glinting, dazzling. Her eyes were black pits.

Lómion did not move. It was too ingrained in him not to touch Idril, to do nothing that could be misconstrued, could add to the whispers that clung around him like shadows, impossible to shake off. Even if she drove the knife into his heart he would not touch her. His face lifted toward the flash of the weapon and he knew that his expression was one of contempt — for her and all she represented.  
  
He saw...He saw Eärendil start forward. Tuor lunged at him and Eärendil, reflexively clasping his hands together for greater force, drove his elbow back into Tuor's gut. The man folded with a grunt. Lómion wanted to exclaim, “Bravo!”

He heard slicing orders from Elladan and Elrohir, “Put up!” and “Sheathe those swords, _now_!” as Tuor's followers moved. He thought there was a whisper of air behind him, a breath of heat in the still, icy air.

The dagger came down. Screamed against a sword upraised to foil it. The clash of metal and Idril's gasping cry of pain came together. Her fingers loosed, and the knife fell, spinning.

Lómion could not look behind him, not yet, at that unmistakable sense of presence. He stepped forward, kicked the dagger, sent it skittering across the cobbles.

Idril threw herself toward Lómion and shrieked in fury as Eärendil caught her around the waist, lifting her back and almost off her feet.  
  
“Thou wilt not touch him.”

Only then did Lómion look. The Sun might have been shining on Fingolfin alone, adoring the white skin, the cascade of black hair dressed with gems and peerless blue diamonds on his brow, but the light that burned behind Fingolfin's eyes put even the Sun to shame and owed nothing to her influence.

“To draw steel upon one unarmed is base.” He was right; Lómion was not armed. He was very deliberately not armed.  
  
Idril, held securely by her son's arm, panted, drew in her breath and hissed at Lómion: “Traitor! Pervert!” and struggled against Eärendil's grip. “ _Let me go!_ How canst thou bear to stand in the same place as him, breathe the same air? _Why hast thou not killed him_?”  
  
“Because he has already died,” Eärendil growled. “What in the Hells in _wrong_ with thee?”

She turned her head, teeth bared at him, and Fingolfin fetched a crisp slap across her cheek. “Control thyself.”

Tuor, supported by two of his men, limped toward them. “He has to _die_.” His voice was cramped with pain, still vicious.

“I have claimed him.” Fingolfin's voice was steel.

“He is _Maeglin the traitor_ ,” Idril cried. The words echoed. “Betrayer of Gondolin, spy of Morgoth, almost the murderer of my son! The man who would have raped me! Cursed be those who have accepted his presence, and cursed they shall be, for he will turn and drive the knife into thy backs again. Darkness calls to darkness!”  
  
Lómion had not seen the courtyard fill up, those who dwelt in Imladris silently entering from stair and doorway. They were silent save for Aredhel who stormed through the throng, straight to Tuor. She pushed him, the heels of her hands slamming against his chest in one strong swift thrust that sent him reeling into the arms of his men, then she whirled on Idril.  
“What world dost thou live in, fool?” she demanded. “This is another Age, another time. My son _has_ died, and I will see _thee_ dead before thou layest a hand on him, thou or any-one!” Her eyes flashed about the crowd. She meant it.

“He— ”

”Did nothing to thee. Nothing. And thou art lying if thou wouldst say otherwise.”

“Let us hear what he did.” The voice made Lómion think of gems melted to liquidity, forged into a sword blacker than darkness, brighter than the heart of a thousand stars.  
  
Fëanor parted the people like a ship's bow-wave, seeming not to see them, not even looking at Idril but at Fingolfin who stared back at him, frozen. The tension took on a different note, fiercer, deeper, thick with unspent lust.  
  
_They have quarreled,_ Lómion thought.

All eyes fixed upon them. They were dressed like the high kings they had been and were, a scrollwork of gold and silver embroidery at the neck and hems of their tunics, heavy velvet hugging slender waists and long legs. They were beautiful as dancers, lethal as a kill. Desire took him by the throat, ruthless as a mailed hand.

Fëanor flashed a smile at him brighter than the winter sun.  
“I have claimed him also.” His fingers streaked a path of fire down Lómion's arm. The gesture, though brief, was acutely possessive and Fingolfin's eyes blazed diamond-blue. Lómion was so enchanted at being part of them, included even in their arguments and the pent passion that crackled between them, that he forgot both Idril and Tuor.

“Lómion.” The name curled like an embrace on Fëanor's tongue. “ Eärendil. He looks more like thee,” to Fingolfin. “than his parents. But let us hear this. I am interested. Let us hear what he did to thee, Turgon-daughter.” He turned his beautiful head. “Fanari, wilt thou bear witness if she speaks the truth as thou knowest it?”

Fanari came forward, still dressed for the archery range, with skirts kilted up over her riding boots. She smiled reassuringly at Lómion. He did not deserve her kindness, but was grateful for it. He loved his mother, but Fanari was warmer, sharp edges worn away by time and sorrow. Or perhaps she had always been thus. Softness was a thing he had never known from either of his parents and, until now, had not know he needed it.  
  
Now though, Fanari did not look warm but coldly angry. The smile dropped from her mouth. She bent her head to Fëanor and Fingolfin in a graceful, courtly movement.  
“Of course, Sire.”

“Thou knowest what he did to me,” Idril's nostrils flared. “And now thou wouldst lie for him? I would expect nothing else from a rape-mother!”  
  
“ _Enough!_ ” Fëanor snarled, suddenly and terrifyingly savage, and Idril pressed back against her son. Fanari merely curled her lip in disdain. She had heard all this before.  
“I know what thou didst tell me, and what I saw,” she said. “He did not touch thee. Frightened thee, yes, thou didst speak of it often.”

“He _did,_ frighten me,” Idril asserted, her eyes flickering back and forth and coming back to rest on Fanari as the least intimidating person present. “Looking and leering as if he could see through my gowns and would rip them off. Watching. Stalking me like a wolf— And his mind...his mind whispering vileness. I could hear his words. I could _see_ every depraved thought in his head.”

Lómion's mind went blank as he tried to summon memories. He could not recollect ever thinking of her in a carnal way, only _wishing_ he could.  
  
“And what were they?” Fingolfin asked, temper fringing his calm words.

“They were _disgusting,_ ” Tuor spat. “She told me and I could not believe it at first—”

“And couldst thou also see into his mind?” Fëanor's question mocked lightly, like a sting. “Well, go on. What didst thou see?”  
  
Colour stood out like paint on Idril's cheeks.  
“I will not foul my mouth with his thoughts.” She held herself stiff within Eärendil's unrelenting grip. For a moment, Eärendil's eyes met his.

It struck Lómion then with the force of a fist what she had seen in him and, perhaps, why she had refused him. And it was not his father's blood. It was not. He had wondered (and it had eaten into his mind) if there truly was something wrong within him.

“I will tell thee what she saw.” He raised his head against the burn of embarrassment but took an odd comfort in the tiny smile that curled one corner of Fëanor's mouth, and the warmth that blossomed suddenly in Fingolfin's eyes. Almost a twinkle, it was. They knew.

“I did not realize before, did not understand what I had done to offend thee when I asked thee to marry me, save that my father was not a Noldo.” How could he have been so blind? “Thou didst not see anything about thyself in my thoughts, didst thou? It was another, a man, and it was _that_ disgusted thee, that which thou didst call dark and crooked.” He could not repress a harsh bark of laughter. “I do not think thou wert jealous, but I offended thee, surely, Turgon's daughter, and proud. And so thou didst decide to punish me for it by blackening my name to all Gondolin, but without telling the truth of the matter because it would place thee nowhere, would it? Just a youthful mistake, which was exactly what thou wert, and for that I do apologise, but as I have told thy son, I could not bear to acknowledge I was a traitor to _myself_ because it was _Glorfindel_ , one of my father's executioners, whom was my obsession. I was running away from my desires, and thou wert safe. Oh, there was ambition there, of course. I wanted to be the king's heir, and but for thee I might have been. It did not require marriage, after all. Only true acceptance. Which thou didst make damned certain I never received!”  
“And thou didst, in the end, become an obsession, but not because I wanted thee, because thou didst villainize me, whispered in every open ear, turned hearts against me. I could not leave, could do nothing save try to avoid thee, and thou didst make that well-nigh impossible. I had made an enemy of the queen's daughter and I was like a bird trapped in a cage, unable to escape thy barbs, as poisonous as the ones that killed my mother.” He looked down at her, stripping away all her beauty as he had so many times before, seeing nothing but pettiness and her hunger for attention, to be the most adored, most wanted creature in Gondolin, marrying Tuor because he was touched by the hand of a Vala, brought excitement into her dull life. Because he worshiped her as she believed was only right and proper.  
  
“I do not blame thee for my treachery,” he told her bitingly. “That lies on my shoulders. I am simply glad that Glorfindel and Ecthelion were so far above thee, held so much more true power in the city, that they never suffered from thy spite.”

He turned away. Tuor was scarlet-faced, roaring curses at him, Idril, until then stiff and furious, wailed and sagged heavily. Eärendil, whom had been staring, loosed his grip, and Idril scrambled free, launching herself from one foot and springing at Lómion like a maddened cat. Faster even than she, Fingolfin stepped into her path and spun her away to Fëanor, who pushed her hard into her husband's arms. Whatever lay between them, that move was entirely unrehearsed, and poetic in its neatness.

“The Valar will _burn_ thee!” Idril's voice came raw and bloody as a stripped bone. “Thou thinks't thou hast won.” Her laugh was filled with stone and bile. “Thou art the Valar's. They gave thee everything, drew thee out of ignorance and sin, and thou doth believe thou canst go back to it.” She shook her head emphatically. “Fools.”  
  
“Why do they insist on trying this pathetic _idiocy_ again and again?” Fëanor wondered. “The Valar are nothing now, and will become less. Go back to them and tell them this: _We are coming for them._ Not now, perhaps not for an Age, _but we will come_.”

Idril went white.

“Take them away.” At Fingolfin's command, ten warriors in the livery of his house marched lockstep into the courtyard, forming a ring about Tuor and Idril and their soldiers, swords drawn. “Set them on the road to the Havens. Thou art not welcome in New Cuiviénen,” he warned. “Do not return there.”

“And do not come again to Imladris.” Elladan and Elrohir spoke as one.

“Thou canst not stop me from seeing my father, my mother,” Idril shouted. “Thou hast no authority over us. We come from Valinor under the hand of the Valar, and we _refuse_ to recognize thee, but my father will see me. He _understands_. And he is more fit to be high king than this...this...” She jabbed a finger toward Fëanor.  
  
“ _Go. Now._ ” Fëanor had not moved, did not have to. The wrath that blazed up in him was enough. Lómion's own throat went tight, ashy. White flame burnt in Fëanor's eyes. Fingolfin moved toward him, head turning as if fascinated, but fingers stretching as if to prevent any rash act. His profile was pure and proud as a line drawing on vellum. No fear there, only an impossible love.  
“Thou knowest naught and have forgotten all thou didst know of thy father,” Fingolfin stated. “He wants his own kingdom, yes, but not one he holds under the Valar. He is my son, but only Eru knows what thou art. Thou hast become so twisted by the Valar, I do not know thee.”

“Thou art mad all of thee, _mad_! Thou hast been warned—” Fëanor took one step forward and there was a scuffle of panicked movement. Dragging his wife with him, Tuor hurried from the courtyard, and toward the bridge. His men followed. Not all of them. More than half hung back, not looking at one another. One of them threw down his sword.  
  
“Follow them,” Fingolfin told his warriors, and there was a clatter of hooves as their horses were brought out. “We will send their horses on when they are rested. It will do them no harm to walk for a time. Thou.” His eyes fell like gemlight upon the soldiers who remained. They went down on one knee. “Decide whom thou doth serve.” He glanced at the twins who nodded. “The Lords Elladan and Elrohir will see thee lodged until we speak to thee.”  
His eyes traveled to Fëanor “Why art thou here?” His question held no warmth, but Lómion was undeceived. He had seen the expression on Fingolfin's face before he locked it away.

“Glorfindel brought me, of course. As he didst thou. I am visiting Gil-galad and Tindómion, the encampments.” Fëanor still simmered, but his words came remote from behind a wall of anger. And that was real enough, but behind it... _ah._ Neither of them could hide it, or not from Lómion. He had Eöl's deep sight and Fëanor, especially, was not half as skilled as Fingolfin in concealing his feelings. It was not in his nature and, Lómion guessed, was being reluctantly learned with despite at the need for it. He wondered what had passed between them.

“Lómion,” Fëanor said, then. “Eärendil. Come. Shall we take some wine?”

A fierce look flamed over Fingolfin's face. Rivalry?  
“Yes.” He put out a hand to both. “Let us.” His face softened on Eärendil, summarily abandoned by both his parents for the second time.  
“Come.”

OooOooO

“It is bootless to listen to them, or try to reason with them,” Fingolfin said as they sat in what had once been Elrond's study and was now the twins. Elladan and Elrohir had joined them. “Those who soak up the Valar become...strange.”  
  
“Too forgiving, half-brother,” Fëanor scorned from the high back chair where he sat, long-legged and elegant. Fingolfin could not look away from him. “Say rather that the Valar suck out their brains leaving their heads as empty as puff-balls, puppets of themselves, speaking words learned by rote. And what words! They never did know how to hold a conversation of any merit or intelligence, always falling back on the _rightness_ of all they did. Remember Manwë's _sermons_?”

Fingolfin remembered everything. Those so-called feasts had been the testing-grounds of his self-control. If he could hide their relationship from the Valar, he could hide it from any-one. Or so he thought. Intoxicating, it had been though the Valar, of course, had known, were already planning their punishment, thus the sermons.

Fëanor picked up a wine goblet, addressing the room. “Eru had appointed the Valar, and so all they did was right. Because they said it was. _That_ is the level of erudition one could expect from them.”  
  
“We were not expected to challenge them,” Fingolfin said. “Their minds did not allow for it. We were supposed to obey them. Blind obedience requires no explanation. They are despots, or were, and would be again.”  
  
“We did not obey them then, why in the Hells they would think we would obey them now surpasses my understanding.”

“They are threatening thee,” Eärendil offered. “They are afraid. They expect _thee_ to fear, after the curse of the Doom.”  
  
Fëanor smiled a promise of vengeance. “If Mandos can curse a gnat out of the air now I would be extremely surprised. And they are right to fear.”

Eärendil said, “They have lost their most useful slaves. I was told that the Valar taught thee Noldor all they knew and, like ingrates, thou didst take that knowledge and claim it for thine own, then turn thy backs upon thy teachers.”  
  
“Really?” Fëanor laughed aloud, though his teeth showed fierce and white as a predator's. “Dost thou think the Noldor came to Valinor knowing nothing? Merely, in Valinor, with stagnation masquerading as peace, we had the time to perfect our skills. We would have done the same on Endor, and perhaps more swiftly. Morgoth was here, and War does tend to expedite discovery and invention. If anything, Valinor held us back. We created and laboured for the Valar as well as ourselves. Thy father,” he looked at Lómion. “was greatly skilled, I believe, as were the dwarves. Neither learned their arts in Valinor.”  
  
“No,” Lómion agreed tightly.  
  
“I did not say I believed it, or I do not now,” Eärendil shifted restlessly. “No-one could see the Valar and then hold a Silmaril and believe they had aught to do with it.” His brows bent, and he burst out: “Why are they so disgusted by men loving other men? Thou didst not even know, didst thou?” to Lómion. “All the darkness, the wickedness Idril said she saw in thee was just...that.”  
  
“No, I did not know, not until this day.” Lómion flushed. He had done well, Fingolfin thought, both he and Eärendil had conducted themselves well. “I thought she truly had seen something dark and treacherous in me, even a foreshadowing of what I would do. I thought it was...” He placed his hands flat on the table. “My father was grim, close-mouthed, and black moods could take him at whiles, but he was not evil. And yes, Nan Elmoth would have been a strange place for an outsider. Dark and eerie, perhaps. There was magic there, a concentration of it, one might say. It was alien to the Noldor and I think to my father also, though he adapted to it and learned from it. But the years I spent in Gondolin wondering _what_ Idril saw in me, and I was nowhere near the mark.”  
  
“I thought it was something like that,” Fëanor said. “As for why the Valar hate it, I have a theory.” He swirled the wine in his cup, mouth tilted. “Men who love other men, women who want other women, those who enjoy both. Any-one who does not fit into their yolk of marriage, bedding and breeding — but the latter only a little and only for a short time. If we were as profligate as Men, we would have overrun Aman. And so, a few children, enough to serve them, pretty, useful slaves, who then lost their desires like water running into a crack in the earth. The Vanyar first, for they were closest to the Valar, but the miasma rolled down from Taniquetil like a fog, to the Noldor and the Teleri, infecting us all.”

“Not thou,” Fingolfin remarked. Their eyes clashed.

“Not thou, either,” Fëanor riposted, rising from his seat. “We all know this, but why indeed would the Valar hate even the idea of a man finding pleasure with a man (or a woman a woman). What business is it of theirs? Of course _everything_ is their business in Valinor, or they chose to make it so.” He stood at the window with the light behind him, and in the shadow of his face his eyes glowed like backlit diamonds. “My theory is that long ago, before they removed to Aman, perhaps even before they dwelt on Almaren, they indulged in such things, and I would wager that Morgoth had all of them.”

“Why him?” Fingolfin raised his brows. _Didst thou follow me or not?_ He had decided that he must be in Imladris when Tuor and Idril came, but he had told no-one but Fingon — and Glorfindel of course. To hear Fëanor speak, to see him when he had not expected it, had turned his bones to fire. It reminded him too much of the years he had expected to see Fëanor walk into the encampment at Lake Mithrim, even knowing he was long dead, gone to ash on the winds of war. Even so.

“Thou hast spent as many times as I at one of the Valar's everlasting feast-days. More, I imagine.” With a flick of a lash meant to cut. “Thou hast seen them. Canst thou imagine _any_ of them experimenting with sex? Of any of them engaging in sex at all?”

Heat poured through Fingolfin's skin at the emphasis on the word _sex_. He clenched his hands about the arms of the chair.  
  
“Morgoth, though...I did not trust him. If one looked into his eyes long enough and deep enough, one could _see_. I knew how dangerous he was, but I admit I did not expect him to use subtlety, poisoning the Noldor's minds.” His head rose, eyes burning, burning. Breathtaking. “ _My_ mind. And yet. He was nothing like the Valar. I never saw their supposed beauty, borrowed from Eru's Children. They never quite managed to get it right. But Morgoth, Melkor as was...he was _different._ ” Fingolfin nodded in agreement. He had been shocked, on first seeing Melkor on parole, and seemingly quiescent at how much resembled Fëanor.  
  
“There was a fire in him. Curiosity. _Passion._ I think he seduced all of them, and then turned on them when they would not follow him. Perhaps they never forgave themselves.” He shrugged. “We only have the Valar's tales of the time before Valinor, the wars of the making of Arda. And I do not believe them, either. But I do think something of the sort happened to curdle their minds.” He moved out of the light, and the sun kissed the ebony fall of his hair, shimmering. “Their hatred is too poisonous, too intense not to point at something festering within themselves.”

Fingolfin did not answer. He heard and understood, but his attention was wholly fixed on Fëanor. It was rare to see him dressed in the panoply of a high noble of the Noldor, had always been rare. Fëanor was always doing something that required ease of movement. Even when studying, he liked to notate, or pace as his brain absorbed and picked apart what he learned. And in his smithies and forges there was no place for finery. Not for him the heavy robes of state and station. He would most often be seen in tunic and breeches. Only at great feasts did he array himself, especially when attending Taniquetil, which he did not from duty but rather, challenge. He outshone all the Valar, and he knew it. Now, in blood-red and sable, he was a gilded icon in the room but, unlike the pale busts and statuary that adorned the palaces of the Valar, his vitality and blazing beauty were intimidating, almost _wild_.

His eyes brushed over Fingolfin like the stroke of flame, and he could not help meeting them, holding them, though he had done all in his power to drive Fëanor away — and succeeded.

And yet, here he was. But perhaps it was simple rivalry. Was Fëanor determined to claim Lómion and Eärendil as he wanted to claim every-one?

“Anyhow.” He sliced a hand through the air. “I do not believe any power or god, or whatever they call themselves would be so narrow-minded.”

“My father tried to follow their Laws,” Elladan's eyes met his twin's, whispering silent intimacy. “Though they were never enforced.”

“I should hope he was to wise to enforce them.” Fingolfin crossed one leg over the other, reaching for calm and unable to find it. “Lómion, Eärendil.” Their eyes came to him. “Thou didst well. I am sorry that it came to this and sorry, too, Eärendil that thy meeting with thy parents went ill.”

“They did not come to meet me,” Eärendil shrugged. “They came to kill Lómion, because no-one else had. I have not had parents since they sailed from Arvernien. Those...creatures of the Valar are nothing to do with me.”

Fëanor closed a hand over his shoulder. “Thou art of the House of Finwë and will never lack a family.”

Eärendil looked up at him, said, seemingly out of nowhere: “It was the Silmaril slew Ancalagon,” he said. “Didst thou know, Sire?”

“Yes.” Fëanor's grip tightened, eased. His hand drew away. “I saw through them, at times. And wish I had not. But that I did see.” He strode past Fingolfin in a whisper of spice and velvet and halted, far too close. “It was like looking through a window. The one thou didst bear was locked away by the Valar save when Manwë seeks to fondle it like a sick lover.” A flash of humour came and went in his eyes. “Its supposed _hallowing,_ ” contemptuously, “was not enough to stop it burning him. He dare not touch it now.” He smiled grimly. “One is in a dark place, cast up by the river of fire that took Maedhros life.” Fingolfin almost reached out to touch him. “One, Glorfindel keeps. I will have them all back. But the one thou didst bear, it shone for thee, Eärendil.”

“And ever the brighter the closer we came to the battleground of the North,” Eärendil whispered. “And then Ancalagon came, vast as a mountain. It had driven the Valar's forces back and all was burning, Thangorodrim gouting lava. All we could see was the beast flying, a shadow against the reek of war. It opened its mouth and I could see fire there, a great maw of it, and the heat growing, growing, to send forth flame that would turn Vingilot into a torch.” His eyes had gone distant, his hands fisted. “I do not know if it was the Valar's plan that I die. I think so. The Silmaril would survive, and they could always reclaim it later. What could we do against such a creature? Then, Eonwë came, winged and mailed in steel; there was blood upon him, I remember, and on his swords. He alighted on the deck and said, 'Take the Silmaril into thy hand.' I offed the circlet and he prised the jewel from its setting. It spoke into my mind in a voice like ...like thine,” to Fëanor. “and yet not human at all. It said, _Deny it, Eärendil. This shall be fire against fire, and mine is the greater._ Eonwë placed it in my hand and I held it.” He demonstrated, his fingers circling about an invisible jewel, thrusting it out before him as in warning. “And I felt power... Eru, so much power. The light was unbearable, but I could see through it as it flamed, a beam of light which was...like nothing I have seen before or since. Nothing I could imagine. It pierced straight down the dragon's open throat like a lance, and it convulsed and screamed, its wings beat a hurricane. Then it fell.” He closed his eyes. “It seemed to fall forever. We watched it break upon Thangorodrim. The ground shook and the mountains crumbled. I would have fallen, then, had Eonwë not caught me.” He was trembling. Lómion reached and laid a hand over his.  
“Drink.” He proffered the wine-cup.

A smile bent Eärendil's mouth.  
“Dost thou intend to make a habit of this?” he asked, and the obviously private jest between them eased Fingolfin's heart a little. Eärendil took a mouthful of the wine, swallowed.

“Thou wert brave,” Fingolfin said gently.

Eärendil set down his cup. “I went expecting to die. I think I went hoping for it.”

“I know.”

They understood one another. Fingolfin felt Fëanor's eyes upon his back.

“Eonwë was always...a possibility,” Fingolfin mused. Inaccessible as the sheer walls of the Pelori, yet he had trained the Noldor in his way of battle, which the Noldor adopted as their own. Eonwë was also one of the only Maia Fingolfin had ever known, though there was rumoured to be many of them. The Noldor had soaked up his teachings eagerly, their strength of body and mind as perfectly suited to combat as they were to athletic pursuits. Once, Fingolfin had been surprised that Manwë had allowed his herald to impart such violent skills, until he came to the realization that the Noldor were the first, best defense against Morgoth. So perhaps Eonwë was merely following orders. And yet...  
  
“Yes,” Fëanor said, bringing his thoughts back like a compass that unavailingly points due north. _Or due Fëanor,_ he thought wryly, wishing it did not, unable to imagine a world where it did not.  
  
Fëanor gave a brief nod. “What thinks't thou, Eärendil? I matters naught. We will fight the Valar regardless, but it is possible we could have allies.”  
  
“It has been a long time since I spoke to him, Sire.” His gold head shook. “But thou art almost bound to have allies, I would think. I know, from when I carried the true Silmaril, that there were those who grieved for the Doom of the Noldor, even among the Teleri. Some spoke against Olwë saying that he should have sailed thee to Middle-earth, that a true friend would have done so.”

Which was true enough. But even Olwë had succumbed to the creeping malaise.

Fëanor's mouth hardened. So much might have been different, but with the Valar's doom hanging over them like a bloody ax, perhaps the ending would have been the same.  
  
“I will tell thee one thing though. Before the War of Wrath, when I was sent up with the Silmaril, I had a great deal of time just to think.”

“One day,” Fëanor said. “I would ask what it was like. But not now.”

Oh, yes, Fëanor, with his insatiable lust for knowledge, would leap at the chance to explore beyond the world, and such a voyage would be fascinating, Fingolfin admitted. As long as it was a free choice.

“Beautiful,” Eärendil answered. “And terrifying. Vingilot was nothing, a fleck of life amid emptiness. Arda is so _rich_ , so fecund. I thought much on my old life, and what I will tell thee comes from then, when I voyaged the seas of the world. It may be pertinent.” He sipped more wine.  
“I saw many lands, some from afar, and some when we landed to replenish our supplies. There are places, in the warm latitudes, where the sea is a clear green, the sand white as snow. Thou must have seen them, sailing to New Cuiviénen.”

“We did,” Fëanor answered. “Go on.”

“In one such place we put Vingilot's anchor down near an island and rowed to shore. There was tropical forest rising to volcanic mountains. It was beautiful, uninhabited. We camped on the beach as the stars came out. There were fish in the bay, so I thought, or dolphins. They tailed phosphorescence as they rolled and dived. And then, a woman walked from the water. She was naked but for her hair. She sat down beside my fire and we greeted her.” He laughed a little. “What else could we do? She took a cup of wine and spoke in a language we did not understand and then in Sindarin as if born to it. She asked where we had come from and of our voyages, and as the night went on, I questioned her. She and her kind had fled when the Valar came. I asked her if she meant Morgoth, and she said no, all of them, when they came to Arda.”  
” Some were not so fortunate and were caught and enslaved. Spirits of the seas, of lakes, of forest and rock and air, born out of the world when it was created. They were meant, she told me, to be free. The Valar chained them into human form, which was one they could take but only when they wished it. She was very beautiful, but not like the Valar, more _real_ , if that makes any sense at all, yet also more alien. When the dawn came, she left, walking back into the ocean, and we saw the silver curve of a great fish break the waters.” He sat back. “I never told any-one. It was too strange, too... _sacred_. But something in her reminded me of Eonwë. Her eyes, the way she moved. Wildness tamed. Just for a time. She tamed it when she spoke to us, but Eonwë, I think, has been tamed for Ages.” He looked round at their absorbed faces. “If that tale was true, and I have no reason to disbelieve it because I know what I saw, and why would the woman lie? I believe the Maia are not Ainur, as we have ever been told, but these creatures of air and water and earth, captured and made into slaves by the Valar.”

Fëanor eyes narrowed and then went wide, brighter than the infalling sunlight.  
“So we are not the only ones to have suffered under the aegis of the Valar. But why would Eonwë, or any of them, still serve the Valar now they have been cast down?”

“Perhaps they have forgotten how to be free,” Fingolfin suggested. “Slaves since the dawning of the world.”  
  
Fëanor tilted his head back, and Fingolfin _felt_ the surge within him, will and command fashioned into an irrefusable call sent out into the aether. He was reminded, with fire coiling in his chest, of the Oath, and how it had seized their hearts. One name was shaped from flame and was bound to him, the other was beyond the world.  
_Coldagnir, Eonwë. Come to me!_  
  
  


OooOooO


	68. ~ Footsteps Of Vengeance ~

**~ Footsteps Of Vengeance ~**

  
“Yes,” Coldagnir said. “It is true. The gods, the Valar, are from the Outside.”

“Now, what meanest thou by that?” Fëanor asked.

The Balrog's scarlet flames of hair rippled like a a living thing in the light.  
“There is a place beyond this universe,” he said. “It is...complicated, and that is an understatement,” he added with a slight smile. “There I things I do not understand myself.”

“I will endeavor to keep up with thee.”

Fingolfin swallowed a reluctant laugh. Coldagnir's bronze eyes flashed with amusement and chagrin intermingled. Even Eärendil mouth twitched.  
“My Lord, I apologize.”  
  
Fëanor gestured. “Never mind. Go on. It was my understanding that thou wert with the Valar from the beginning.”

Perhaps it was from curiosity that he had guided the conversation far from the personal, or perhaps it was design. Fëanor could be wholly self-absorbed, completely selfish, but — and something one tended to forget, seeing only his temper and arrogance — he could read people to the core. Eärendil would speak of his parents, Valinor and the Valar but the fact that he had taken longer in telling the tale of the sea-woman suggested strongly to Fingolfin that he did not wish to. Not yet. Lómion too, had been shaken by the events of the morning, brief though they were. But even those who might have turned on Lómion had seemed both bored and disgusted by Tuor and Idril. So, let them speak of other things.

“The beginning,” Coldagnir repeated. “I do not know what theirs was, the Valar, but my own was in the blazing womb of the young universe. I was born out of it, and there were many of us, then. The birth was heat and light beyond imagining. And that was all I knew for a long time. And then, I heard a new song, something I yearned for, something I had to find.”

“The Valar?” Fingolfin asked, somewhat incredulous.  
  
Coldagnir shook his head with a wry look. “Never. It was Eru. I found the Timeless Halls, and he welcomed me. It was...I cannot explain the completeness of it, the love.” His voice trailed away as an expression of longing opened on his face. “I... joined with the Music. The Valar were a small part of it. Eru was over all, and the Valar envisioned what they desired to see, but it was _we_ , me and those like me, who formed the bones, the roots, the fabric of all things. The details of _life_. The Valar did not know how.” A grim smile hovered on his mouth. “They were always surprised, I think, when their dreams did not match the reality. They could not design all to their whim, no matter how much they may have wanted to. They wanted the image of perfection without the reality of it. They were sterile and wanted all else to be. Perfectly beautiful. Unchanging, in a universe that always changes.”  
  
“Why did Eru allow them so much power?” Fingolfin demanded, coming to his feet.  
  
“Eru wanted them to _learn_ ,” Coldagnir turned to him. “to live upon the Earth, but most would not leave him. Those who became the Valar were eager to embody themselves and live on Arda. Melkor was the first to leave, though he—”

“Yes?” Fëanor prompted.  
  
  
“He loved Eru, too.” Coldagnir's pearly skin flushed. “Then, before Time was, Melkor loved him. Perhaps more than any other of his kin.”

Fëanor frowned. His eyes came to Fingolfin's. Who could not break the line of fire drawn between them.

“But even then, Melkor was... _different_ ,” Coldagnir continued. “Tormented, passionate, wanting to experiment and change. The Valar — the _other_ Valar — did not trust him and came to Eru and asked him to appoint them guardians of the world. They would, they said, control Melkor's ambitions and power, so that Arda would become as beautiful as it had been in their visions. There were some who said that they should not meddle at all, but they replied that Melkor had already meddled and if uncontested would rule all Arda. It must be made safe for the coming of the Children. And _ah!_ Eru loved thee, his own breath is within thee. And so. But the Valar did naught, truly but try to remake the Timeless Halls on Almaren, and then in Valinor, and they were just as ambitious as Melkor. The Noldor must surely know that.”

“We know it indeed.” Fingolfin felt the hatred bloom under his tongue. But now was not the time for vengeance. It would come in time. He dragged his eyes away from Fëanor. “So the Valar do enslave those like thee, those whom are not from the Outside?”

“Those who could not or did not flee. It was their first act, in the long Ages before the Elves awoke, and in doing so, Eru proclaimed the Valar anathema. They were shut out of the Timeless Halls.”

“Pity,” Fëanor murmured. “But if Eru will not bring them to judgement, _we_ will. And to think that Manwë purported to speak for Eru.” His mouth thinned. “Lies. All of it.”

“Embodiment _changes_...everything,” Coldagnir's voice stepped into a distant past, filled with wonder and fear. “We are forced into restrictions, to rule and order and boundaries and all the marvels — and pain — of having form. One cannot walk as a god on Arda, or not with the mind of one. I think one must become more _human_ , but the Valar, and Melkor, wanted to be gods, nothing else. To have power over Arda and over Eru's children, of whom they were deeply jealous. That is why Vanimórë and Glorfindel were chosen, I think. Because they _are_ human.”

“It took a long time,” Lómion said hardly. “for Eru to make amends for his mistake. Why did he not do something before?”

“Eru cannot come into the world,” Coldagnir told him. “It would be too fragile to bear him. If thou thinkest the Valar have — or did have — power, it is nothing to Eru's. And Time...is not measured where he dwells. Perhaps Vanimórë and Glorfindel had to live their lives, to become what they are.”

“What does Eru look like?” Fëanor asked, absorbed and curious.

“I do not know.”

“But thou hast seen him?”

“Eru is formless. Thought. A presence. Perhaps even the gods could not look upon him if he took form. And yet...” Coldagnir's brow's flicked together. “He is more real than the Valar. They were — _we_ — were children. He is not. He understood. Everything. That is why I do not believe that the Valar are the offspring of his mind as they say. They are too alien.” He went to a side table, pulling a sheaf of parchment toward him and drew on it, placing it on the table. “The small circle is Arda and all that is within it or proceeds from it. This one that encloses it is all that is beyond; where I come from, though I am still a part of the universe. This one is the Outside. The Valar came from the Outside, but this — ” He indicated the mass of white surrounding the circles. “Eru is beyond it all, all that is and will ever be.”

Fëanor drummed his fingers on the wood.  
“Thou hast said nothing of this before,” he noted, smiling pleasantly but with danger in his eyes. He had not forgotten, Fingolfin thought, what Coldagnir had done under Morgoth.

“I did not think it would be of interest, my lord.”

“Everything is of interest to me.” He straightened. “One never knows when knowledge will be useful. And is Dana one of these spirits born out of the world?”  
  
Coldagnir shrugged. “She must be, I suppose. I saw her come to Utumno.” At their expressions he continued: “It was when the Valar dwelt on Almaren. She was escorted to Melkor's throne room. He had her thrown out of the gates. Later, I heard that he had slain her far in the south. That is all, save what Vanimórë has told me of her.”

“The Valar,” Fëanor mused. “I wonder if she would try to use them? Or would any-one be that desperate? Or would they try to use her?”

Fingolfin was more concerned about the Valar using or threatening those Elves who still chose to remain there, his father among them, but Glorfindel was watchful, and the Valar knew it. Anyhow, not all of them were ranged on the side of Manwë, Varda and Námo. Irmo guarded the Halls of Waiting and his gardens where the still wounded-in-spirit might rest, and Oromë had proved what side he had taken in the matter of Finrod.

“What do we do about her?” he asked coolly. “We can hardly march on Sud Sicanna and throw down her temple.”

“I was not suggesting that,” Fëanor blazed at him. “Although it could come to it. But no-one knows where she has gone.”  
  
“I believe Vanimórë is before thee in those lists, Fëanor. And so he should be.”

“Oh, indeed he is. But I will not let her play with our people without I lift a hand to stop her.”  
  
Always Fëanor spoke as if he had the power of a god, even now.  
He turned back to Coldagnir. “Thy people deserve to be freed, those still encased in the Valar's chains. And what happened to those like thee, not Balrogs, but others, that Morgoth captured?”  
  
Coldagnir's head shook. “Scattered, most of them, after the Great Defeat. Sauron may have called some back to him; he was master of the wolf-spirits.”  
  
Fëanor suddenly went still, beautiful head upraised as if hearing a call.  
Then he said, “I want a map of the world.”

OooOooO

Her hate had always consumed her, feeding on itself like a sun, but it had been amusing to enact a role when she was with Vanimórë. How easily he believed in her inherent goodness, seeing his sister's face in every woman. He was blind as a stone with her, even accepting her rape of him as something he deserved, payment of her own rape by Melkor. Vanimórë had swallowed that lie, too, given to him as he dreamed on the altar in Sud Sicanna.

It was corrosive, _unpalatable_ to know that he, too, had only played a part, that he had not liked her, nor even wanted her, but was accustomed to unpleasant duties. She had not looked deeper when she was with him, relishing only in having such a man inside her, because it was her due, because she believed he desired her. He had been raped, tortured, by Melkor and Sauron. And so? What she had done to him was not the same. She deserved him, everything he gave, all the times he had pleasured her. The Valar had turned her away, as had her own father, Melkor, and so she had chosen Vanimórë. It was her right.

He had let her see though, in that frowsty room in Umbar, let her see the whole truth: how the touch of her evoked only the memory of rape, the women on him, riding him, and her at the end, taking and taking, eyes glaring, mouth and cunny hot and howling, devouring him. He showed her how Sauron had been able to wring pleasure from him, and how she could not, his bored resignation when he acceded to her demands. He had lied, lied, lied, and the contempt in his eyes was lava; it demanded revenge. She would still have him, but as a slave; she would drain his own blood from his veins and feed it back to him with her own mixed into it. She would tune his body to despair and agony lasting Age upon Age so that he would plead for the pain and humiliation he had known under Melkor and Sauron. (Oh, yes, Melkor too. Who would have made her a slave but did not desire her.) She would force power into him so that, willing or no, she could ride him when she pleased. _How dare he_ look without interest on her and with lust on others? Melkor's daughter, robbed of her birthright to have and take all she wanted. Well, if Vanimórë ever did claw back his desires, (she hoped not, but his will-power was formidable) he would kill any woman he touched, one way or another. Her thoughts of vengeance lingered on Elgalad, so loving, so lovely, but she knew she could not get near him, and if she did...no, far better to make Elgalad a slave also; that would be piquant.

Her teeth bared in a snarl of frustration. Vanimórë had been so _perfect_ for her plans; a slave, used to taking orders, a half-Elf with all their beauty. Her bodiless dreams had been filled with lust as she imagined those eyes of his, the sinful mouth between her legs, worshiping at the wet temenos of her core, the long, elegant body on hers, black silk hair falling over her skin. Hers, all of him hers to use as she wished, when she wished. But he was not just a lover, he was a leader, a warrior, with a furious passion often suborned to his will. And he loved women, invariably treated them well. For Dana, he had been a gift. Now the gift had failed to please her. It would not do what she wanted. She had _wasted_ thousands of years on it. Vanimórë had never shown her his passion, and she had thought it had been from consideration for her, an extension of the way he treated woman but, when he had inherited the seraglio of Sud Sicanna, those women (who came to adore him) had known his fire as had Glorfindel and Maglor, enough to burn down the world.

 _He chose them,_ a voice whispered, not her conscience but some unwanted, alien thought. _He did not choose thee._

He should have.

She slid like smoke, like a worm, into the woman's mind. She peeled a flake of herself away and tucked it deep within, then turned to scan the world, following webworks and paths of power and darkness.  
She smiled.  
  
Dana had dreamed of Vanimórë, but she had also dreamed of his sister, and made it her business to hunt the woman down. The crone did not know her. She did not know any-one, any-more. Melkor and Sauron had crushed her between them until she was little more than a broken shell staggering under the weight of an ancient curse, but a shell that lived and breathed (if one could call it that) and searched for a face. The last face she had seen before she died: the brother she adored. Whom had killed her.

There was little left of the girl who shone so clear in Vanimórë's mind, once-lustrous hair cobweb-white, skin cracked like old porcelain. Only her eyes held any hint of her former beauty and they were not violet, like her brother's but stormcloud-grey. One could look into them and see a tunnel of shadows, then far, far back, blazingly clear, the stricken, beautiful face of a young Vanimórë as he gave her death.

Dana found her in the hot dust of an alley in a nameless Haradhic town, a nowhere-place between here and there, where the stink of effluent made Dana's nose wrinkle. She hated the poor, the stench of them, the stupidity, how they wallowed in squalor. They would be her slaves when all was done, fit for nothing else.  
“How long has it been?” she hissed, bending over the wreck of the only woman Vanimórë had ever loved. “Do you still think to find him? Shall I take you to him, I wonder? Just to watch him break open when he sees you are not dead, when he sees what you have become?”

Vanya's wrinkled mouth formed soundless words. Her brows crooked.  
  
“No. I think not. It is for _me_ to break him. Do you remember me, hag?” She gripped the woman's thin face in one hand, the other pushing back a tattered sleeve to reveal the brand of Angband: an iron crown, the mark that never faded. She grunted in furious amusement. “If those eyes of yours can still see clear, mark me well, and hear me. I will have that bastard brother of yours on his knees, serving me, servicing me, as he should have willingly. But willing or unwilling, he will be mine. Do you understand? He is not going to rescue you. He would never know you if he saw you. Why do you not just die and go into the dark, old hag?” For one thing she knew, because she had tried: she could not kill Vanya. The woman was so permeated with sorcery that she would not die until she had achieved her end. And the malice of that end was one Dana could admire; Vanya was an arrow launched long ago that would make its way straight into her brother's heart.  
  
Vanya said, husk-voiced but clear: “ _Vanimórë?_ ”  
  
Dana startled, then laughed in her face. “ _Yes._ I have had him, you know, numberless times.” Then she choked on the truth of that sex. “I will take all that he is, all that beauty. _Everything._ ”

The great grey eyes stared into hers. They were mercilessly clear even if her mind were not, and they held an absoluteness of love. Dana spat at her and raged down the alley. Two whores jibed, and she stopped their hearts with a thought. A baby cried from a house and she killed it, listened to a woman's voice rise in wails of loss. Her mind scanned the world, the bright lights and the dark, and found a smudge of nothingness in the south that she had been aware of for a long time.  
She pondered, then she smiled again.

“Vanimórë?” Vanya whispered. She gathered herself slowly, began to walk out of the alley. Dana turned to watch her, a tall, stooped figure in voluminous robes bleached by sun and wind. Her anger regathered itself. Vanimórë would do anything for this relic, but for her? For Dana? _Nothing._ Her awakening had only been his destiny, something he had been born to do, and he had performed admirably, but his ultimate fate as her consort, he turned away from as if it were a horror rather than the highest of honours.

There were others she wanted, that went without saying, but they had slammed the doors of their minds against her – for now. She had tried cajoling, reaching out to Fëanor, another jewel in her crown and the most splendid when the Silmarils were finally gathered and set on her brow. She imagined him kneeling at her feet, the fire in his eyes only for her, the Silmarils a gift of his devotion. There should be a bond between them; he had taken her, the night of Nost-na-Lothion. But he had burned up like a storm-fire, driving her back with a scorn that matched and promised he would kill her.

As for that night, he had said, it meant nothing; he had wanted her to leave, not destroy the magic with her condescending and entitled presence. Fingolfin was wholly unresponsive, cold as steel in winter. Glorfindel said, “Thou art nothing. Thou hast been nothing, done naught but indulge thyself and rape. Get hence. And run as far as thou canst, for thou wilt have no mercy from me.”

He and Vanimórë both had hedged the Elves from West to East with power. Like a vast web, they would know if she touched them, and they would have been difficult enough to infiltrate without it. Dana had never been around Elves enough to easily mimic one of them, even the so-called Avari who purported to worship the Mother whose name and attributes Dana had claimed as her own. But there was no other, so why not her?

Even the mad twins simply looked through her as if she were a pane of glass, denying — and then Daeron's dagger was at her throat. It left a mark. She abhorred pain; the sight of her own sacred blood shocking to her. The twins had laughed as at a great jest, then nocked their bows fast as light.  
“We do not like liars or rapists,” Elúrin had sing-songed. “Vanimórë took us _back_ , we saw a vision of him him in Barad-dûr. Thou knewest his life, yet forced him anyhow, and now have robbed him like a sneak-thief in the night. We need naught from thee.”  
  
“ _You_ are rapists,” Dana cried at them.

They shrugged. “So?” Lapis-blue eyes narrowed. “Thou doth go too far. No-one will be thy slaves. Why should they? What hast thou done that thou shouldst become queen of the world? _Nothing._ ”  
  
“I saved you!”

Their heads shook. “Didst thou? Or hast thou made us think that? And for why? To own us?” Elúrin glittered at her. “That is power, not love, not caring, part of a plan, and a clever one, I will admit. But the veils are torn, _Dana_. “ Her name fell like a stone. “We have Daeron, we have ourselves, we do not need _thee._ ”  
  
“Thou hast ever demanded love and reverence and given naught back,” Daeron said, musical voice gone icy. “Walking uninvited into our lives as if thou didst own us. Thou canst not read the hearts of people, hast no idea of our boundaries, or care naught for them. Now, _go._ ”

“Go,” another voice echoed and she saw Beleg standing beyond, mounted on a frozen boulder, his great black bow drawn to full tension. “Or I will put this arrow between thine eyes. Perhaps I cannot kill thee,” he added. “But I can hurt thee, I think. Even gods can bleed.”  
  
Melkor had slain her as one would swat a fly, too enraged by her to draw the killing out, but there had been an instant when she felt pain. No. Never again.

“I am Melkor's daughter!”

“Art thou? If it is so, we condole with thee. But it is not something I would boast of. And yet thou art also deadly _dull_.” Elúred's lips sneered the word. “And unbearably pretentious. To be one or the other is bad enough, to be both is unforgivable.”  
  
And an arrow split the half-frozen earth at her feet. She screamed, pulled herself away from the cold north.  
  
She would deal with them one by one. The patience instilled in her by her long sleep had its uses, but now, _now_ she wanted to hurt and kill.  
  
It was almost dark, the narrow street lit only by a few spluttering torches. Dana shoved at the mind of a shambling drunk, who lurched into Vanya, knocking her to the ground. She picked herself up, wordless as Dana drew the beauty of her memory out of the bones of her face so that, as her hood slipped back, the loiterers and drinkers saw, even in the gloom, the woman she once had been. And that glimpse was more than enough to fire their lust.

After that, it was easy. Men followed her, whistling, calling out crude comments and, at last, backed her into a narrow alley. Dana drew Vanimórë's face onto their coarse, drink-blurred features, heard Vanya's cry, and then her screams began, terrible and hopeless. No-one interfered as the men took her in turns, one by one, and then, for a spice of variety, one forced himself into her back passage.  
  
After, they relieved themselves against the alley walls and slouched away, tying their trews. The woman lay in a heap, old again. Dana marched down the alley and stood over her, smelling blood and seed. A couple of women edged down from the street muttering their concern.  
“She will be all right,” Dana dismissed. How many times had this happened when Vanya still looked like a half-Elf? Dana could not count them. She always healed, always survived.  
  
She knelt down, prised Vanya's legs apart and thrust her fingers inside. A groan erupted from the woman's throat. Dana withdrew, licked at the fluids on her skin, smiling. Blood was sweet, when it was not her own. And why not? She had bled enough when Melkor decapitated her.  
  
“Did you ever dream of _him_ fucking you?” Although she knew that had never been in Vanimórë's mind, only a pure love that wanted to protect, a love that had driven him to a murder he could never forgive himself for. “You would have enjoyed it, I am sure.”  
  
Vanimórë,” Vanya whimpered. “ _Kill me._

Dana's mind dwelt lovingly on the thought of Vanimórë finding his sister like this, but the two women were pressing forward now, suspicion and anger raising their voices. No, not now. Now was too soon, and anyhow, she was almost, _almost_ sated by Vanya's rape.

She returned to the street, just another tatterdemalion figure in the night. She paused to buy cheap wine and drank it as she approached the edge of the town.  
  
There was a camp outside the walls, a tumbledown caravansary; not much trade passed through here. A just-arrived group were setting up tents. High bred horses nuzzled in grain sacks, fires bloomed. She saw the wink of armour not unlike that of Khand, but not quite the same. There was a scent of rich wine, an air of prosperity foreign to this place — and the ichor-reek of sorcery.  
  
Dana ambled closer, like a half-drunk whore looking for business, which she would not have minded with any of these men. They walked with the spring and elasticity of youth, but young they were not. There was power knit into their bodies, power she knew. They blazed with a brightness unseen in Mortals, as if the god-blood within them had lit them with an imperishable fire.

Some _were_ Variag's, she saw, with that gold-toned skin and fierce, up-tilted eyes, long dark hair drawn back and braided, rolled into fists. There was one from the distant Cloud-Forest kingdom, bronze and handsome, another with the thick curls of the northern Harad tribes, one was Cathaian and one owned the fair skin and black hair of Gondor. Precious stones glittered in their ears and beside their nose, emerald, ruby, sapphire, the white fire of diamonds. There was a depth in their eyes no Mortal could ever carry.

Dana listened to their talk as they gathered around one of the fires, the undercurrents of their thoughts. A smile opened inside her. She knew about them, these men, although Vanimórë had never spoken to her of them. How many things he had hidden, that she was forced to root out from his mind? They came from the long-ago, their lives lengthened, perhaps forever, by Sauron's blood or, in some cases, Vanimórë's. All of them had all bound themselves to Vanimórë, whether he wanted it or not. _Stupid boy. You sent them to such freedom as they could find, immortal and forever touched by god-blood, but you did not want to bind them. They bound themselves anyhow. Just as you are bound to me._  
  
_How? Why?_ What did Vanimórë posses that he should evoke such loyalty?

She discarded the rough homespun, the face and body she had worn. She shook the heavy red skirts round gold-jingling ankles, smelled the heavy musk-rose of her perfume. Her eyes were elongated with kohl, her lips blood-red. She cupped power in the palms of her hands.  
  
“Gentlemen,” she said, strolling into the firelight.

They were on their feet, graceful, dangerous; she recognized Vanimórë's training in their movements and she could see now their robes were shed that they were dressed like him: black tunics and boots, the only colour a six-pointed purple star on their breasts.  
  
The Haradhan's eyes went flat. With a snap of irritation, Dana recognised him. His name was Tanout, one of Vanimórë's young captains from Sud Sicanna. He had offered himself in her temple when he was scarce into manhood as men all should (but few did). She remembered he had not seemed to enjoy the honour. As was tradition, a young acolyte was sent to lie with him. Because Tanout was young and beautiful Dana had taken her place, as was her prerogative.

“You.” Tanout's voice came like forged ice. “What do _you_ want?” Before she could answer, he tilted his head toward the others. “Imir, D'nez, Celírel, Kan-dai, Ajan, Shemar, Enet, permit me to introduce Dana, the so-called Mother. Some of you may have already met her in one of her other disguises.”  
  
They looked at her without awe or fear, calculation in their eyes.  
  
“Did you think Vanimórë's exposure of you would not reach us?” Tanout questioned.

“And you believe him?” Her hands clenched, bangles clinking.

“He never trusted you,” Tanout said. “Thought you were too... _unreliable_. But then, he also thought you irrelevant. As do we.”

“I am Melkor's daughter whom the Elves name Morgoth Bauglir. Sauron's power was nothing in comparison to his— ”

“We do not care who you purport to be,” Imir the Variag cut across her. “Your actions speak for you. All you have done is _nothing_ and rape men when it suited you. For thousands of years you have walked the Earth and rarely lifted a finger to help any-one other than yourself. We have all traveled to places where the Mother is worshiped. They pray for help and sacrifice to you, and you give nothing. You are _not_ the Mother. If there is any such thing She is not _you._ ”

“There is no-one but me.” Her teeth set. “And why should I help the whining scum of the world?” Her hate for them shocked through her, a burning river of acid. “And what are Men for, save to labour and serve? The world is my _birthright_ , the new one will be my empire. The fortunate will be my _favoured._ ”

“I would rather be favoured by a back-alley whore,” Celírel slashed back. “All we want from you is to know where the Prince is.”

Blood blasted into her cheeks. “He does not want you!”

“He never wanted us beholden to him. He was never free. Now he is. Where — is — he?”

She could not...get behind their eyes, into their minds. Her will glanced off them. They were, unforgivably, not in the least interested in her. She lashed out to rip, maim, _kill._.. and came up against a steel wall, vast and ancient, older than she was. She smelled myrrh, metal, fire, the sorcery of Sauron, sandalwood, steel tested to beyond breaking-point, the unacknowledged power of Vanimórë. The men's eyes flickered with smiles. A spike of panic soured her mouth.

“Sorcery,” Imir said. “cannot kill us. Now: where is the Prince?”

Dana spat out bile. “Who knows?” she lied. “He lives as little more than a vagrant now, since Sauron's defeat. I could offer you more. Power over a whole world— ”  
  
“We are the the Prince's Immortals, the _Khadakhir_ *” Imir cut across her. “So we have named ourselves, we who wait for him, who watch for him, and would guard him from people like you who raped him and held up his torments before his eyes. If you think that made the smallest difference to how we feel about him, you are wrong.”  
  
She laughed without mirth. “Perhaps you are all perverts then, who find pleasure in the thought of his fucking orcs and animals. And you _are_ aware he was made a god? Do you think he needs you to defend him?”  
  
“You have the mind of a sewer,” Tanout bit out.. “Of course we know that. We are not Men any-more, not wholly. We saw it.” He tapped his head. “And we are his. Always.” His dark eyes flashed. “We passed through Sud Sicanna. There are statues and shrines to our prince there and in other places in the south and east. There is a cult around him. He will rule the south, Dana; he will build an Empire, become a God-Emperor, and you, after all your cruelty, all your plotting and planning, all your grand designs, will have _nothing._ ”

She sucked in a hot breath. He would build an Empire, yes, that she had seen, and she had meant to rule it through him, seated at his side.  
“He does not _want you,_ ” she shouted. “ Has he ever searched for you? No! And I have pronounced his doom. Would you share it? Or will you listen to sense and join with me? I have need of an honour guard—”

“ _Honour_? The word should wither on your tongue. There is no honour in you. You speak from your own delusions of grandeur and live a lie, and it would take something far greater than you to break or doom our prince.” Imir drew a knife from its sheath. It was dark, old metal, the colour of thunderstorms. Power purred in its depths. He tossed the blade, caught the handle idly.  
  
“You think you can harm me with a Morgul blade?” she mocked, and the mockery choked into a scream as it took her in the eye. Red-hot, white-hot agony exploded through her skull.  
  
“Well, you see, it is not a Morgul blade.” The wrench as it was pulled out doubled and redoubled the pain. “We are the Khadakhir but we served Sauron also. It was he who forged this daggers.”

Dana reeled, wavering in and out of shape, hands clamped over an eye that, she knew, would always be blind. Then she threw herself away from the desert, to the refuge she had seen away in the south. There she would heal — and plot her revenge.

OooOooO

Some of them had been changed by Sauron, some by Vanimórë but all of them, without exception, reserved their love and loyalty for the latter. They had no choice; it was simply the way he was, evoking hero-worship and admiration and, beneath them an underpinning of the utmost respect tinged with not a little fear. Most of them had seen what he was capable of, and not only in battle. He could be coldly unhuman, yet he had soothed their fears, listened to them, encouraged them, mentored them and they had all, from choice and eagerly, been his lovers.

But none of them had seen him in a long time. As Immortals, they were superb ambassadors for Mordor, a living reminder of its lord's power, thus none of them had fought in the War of the Ring but, as the echoes of the war's ending and Sauron's fall rumbled across Arda, they had gathered themselves, leaving the places they called home, (there were no more orders to keep them there, no overlord to chain them) to seek Vanimórë. They knew he was not dead, but their calls to him went unanswered and they were not surprised. Before serving Sauron they had known little of him, all of it limned in glamour; later they had learned more of his life which only increased their admiration. While Sauron lived they could do little but now Vanimórë — all of them — were free.

They had met in Sud Sicanna, still a prosperous city, as Mordor was clearly out of the question, but no sign of their prince had been reported, and he was not a man who could be unobtrusive. They were disappointed, but nothing could dim their euphoria. All of them had made what they could of their long lives, followed orders, and become very good at all they did. But they had not been free for thousands of years. Vanimórë could have warned them not to become drunk on it, but he would have understood.

“So, where now?” Ajan asked.

“Anywhere,” Tanout said, confident and unconcerned by the vastness of their task. “Until we find him. We have,” he added. “all the time in the world.”

“And if he does not want us, as she said?”

Tanout smiled. “Oh, he will refuse at first, of course, we all know his terrible pride.” He took a sip of wine. “We will just have to convince him.” They had all learned a great deal about determination from Vanimórë. “And, you know he will think of us as his responsibility.” There was affectionate laughter.

“A god should have an honour guard,” D'nez said. “One must present a certain appearance, after all.” He grinned at Imir. They had been childhood friends.

They chuckled again at the thought of anything or any-one giving the prince any more of an 'appearance' than he already possessed. The wine-skin went round.

“Well, I think we can consider our first mission for him successful,” Shemar said with satisfaction. He had once been a Sauronic priest's catamite, wounded in body and spirit. Now he was lethal and lithely beautiful, amber eyes rimmed with kohl.  
  
Imir casually cleaned his dagger of eye-matter and ichor. A human would be dead, but it has been pleasant to... _puncture_ Dana's arrogance. He tossed the rag into the fire.  
“She has no idea how to fight, what signals to look for,” he commented. “She is just a mistake, a dangerous one, but lazy. And greedy. He will have to destroy her. Her temerity is astounding.” They had become accustomed to power, Sauron's and Vanimórë's, manifested more in his sheer presence and superlative warrior skills than in the arcane. Dana might call herself a goddess, but there was nothing there any man would follow, no, nor women either— or they would not if they knew the truth about her. She cared only for herself and her grand plan of ruling and enslaving the world. Melkor's dominion on Middle-earth had been long before their births, but if Dana was his byblow it seemed she had inherited his desires.

“Women need a god or goddess to give them ear,” Enet murmured to general agreement. “But not that one.”

The fire crackled in the silence. Celírel shifted, said, out of nowhere: “Why did we come here, anyhow? This is a no-place.”

Imir said slowly. “I do not know. I thought perhaps he had been here. There is something...”

“Very faint, but yes there is,” Tanout agreed.

Perhaps we are looking in the wrong places, my friends,” Celírel suggested. “Vanimórë is half-Elf, after all.”

“Do Elves even walk Middle-earth these days?” D'nez wondered.

“There are Elves south of my homeland,” Enet told him. “In the deep forests. Hunters glimpse them sometimes. We call them the White Ghosts, but from all I have gathered, they are Elves.”

“They speak of them in the north, too,” Kan-dai offered. “Beyond Cathaia, in the wild lands.”

“Imladris,” Celírel said. “That was the name of the haven of the High Elves in the north, somewhere in the Hithaeglir, the Misty Mountains.” He rose easily, went to his pack and drew out a map, spreading it in the firelight. “Somewhere about... _here._ ”

OooOooO

In a dim bedroom, Vanya lay on a thin pallet. The women had done what they could for her. As whores, they were not unfamiliar with rape, the damage and the pain. They gave her a thin wine to drink, hoping she would sleep and made her as comfortable as possible. And she had slept, motionless, until she woke in the dark. Fire danced in her eyes.

In Sud Sicanna, in the Temple of the Mother, the great firebowls went out.

OooOooO

“Utumno.” Fëanor laid his hands flat on the table. “Older than Angband, and greater, where Morgoth first twisted the Elves he capture into orcs. Even now it casts its shadow.”

“Thou art not thinking of hunting for _Utumno_?” Fingolfin demanded, thinking _I will not permit this, thou madman! Who knows what lurks there?_ “Our war is with Angmar. And that also casts a shadow.”

“Thank you, I had not forgotten,” Fëanor flashed at him as Fingolfin stared at his mouth. “But the area where Utumno was is too close to us for me to ignore it. We need patrols up there.”

“Then we will send them,” Fingolfin agreed through set teeth.

The air above Imladris cracked with a double _boom_. Coldagnir said, “Eonwë.”

They stepped out of the long windows into the garden.

A white meteor flashed across the grey sky, descending — to be caught in sudden and vicious crosswinds. Great white wings curved against the blasts that held it like a moth, beating furiously. The blackening clouds moiled and shifted and from them came ugly shapes, skeletal, reptilian birds, long beaks open to reveal razor teeth. Eonwë's sword came out in a searing flash.  
  
Coldagnir leaped from the ground in a storm of fire, cocooning Eonwë and blasting flame outward in a great ring. The monsters withered, shrieking. The clouds broke in lightening, and they rode one bolt down, Coldagnir and Eonwë, wings swept back like hawks diving. The lightening blasted up clods of earth, left afterimages imprinted on the eyes.

Eonwë wore armour like snakeskin, the armour of the First Age, supple as fish-scales, hugging the body from neck to toe. His hair was silver white, as were his eyes and storms blew across them.  
  
“High King.” He inclined his head. “High Prince.” Something moved in those wind-racked eyes as he looked at Eärendil. “There is great anger upon Taniquetil,” he said. “I am glad thou hast been freed.” His wings vanished with a snap, one white feather drifting down to the grass. “Thou hast summoned me, Fëanáro. Here am I.”

“Yes,” Fëanor sounded as if he had expected nothing else. “What were those things that attacked thee?”

“That was Námo's conjouring, Varda's cold and Manwë's winds.” Eonwë's gaze shifted to Coldagnir. “My thanks. I appreciate thine intervention.”

“I have a question to ask,” Fëanor said. “ _What art thou_?”  
  
Eonwë stepped closer, searched Fëanor's face, his eyes, frowning.  
“So,” he said on a breath. “Thousands of Ages of lies are broken. I was — ironically — the wind, the storms. Why thinks't thou that Manwë, who still calls himself the Lord of the Breath of Arda bound me?”

“He is diminished.”

“I was bound for eternity. We look for _thee_ to free us, Fëanáro Curufinwë. When thou hast destroyed Manwë, Varda and Námo and all those who adhere to them, we will be free.”  
  
“I have vowed to do that,” Fëanor said easily, but gleaming, _glowing_. Fingolfin gazed at him, as they all did, entranced by the fire licking under his skin, the furnace of his soul. “But thou must also help thy-selves. _Fight them._ ”

“We do what we can,” Eonwë responded. He pointed at Coldagnir. “Ask him what it is like to live under a power that has claimed thy soul, and wears it as a trophy. He still feels it, even with Melkor in the Void. Dost thou not?”

Coldagnir nodded somberly.  
  
Eonwë lifted his hands. Ghostly chains trailed from his wrists, his throat, his ankles. They were black, weeping bitter-looking rust. “If you send them to the Void they will drag us with them and there they will regain the powers stripped from them. And then they will find a way back. Thou must _consume_ them, Fëanáro.”

Fëanor reached out a hand — and his fingers passed through the chains. He tilted his perfect brows and a smile pricked the corners of his mouth.  
“It will be a pleasure,” he said.  
  
  
  


OooOooO

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Khadakhir (Pron. Caah-dack- _eer_ ) – From the Variag language, translated as Guards of the Prince.


	69. ~ The Winter Kings ~

 

  
**~ The Winter Kings ~**

 

~ The orcs were stocky black figures against the frigid white, cut now and then, by blasts of fuming snow. Some walked in tandem, dragging great sledges for plunder. The Ice Bay of Forochel offered no cover, but clad in bleached leather and pale furs, the _Ithiledhil_ were nigh invisible as they lay on their stomachs.  
  
They had left the first of the Lossoth villages two leagues behind them, their warriors preparing for battle if Edenel's plan went awry. They were a hardy folk; they had to be living in such a climate, and brave, moreover, with their rich culture that spanned Ages, they had been less surprised to see Elves than many Men would have been. Elves were not entirely strange to them. Neither were orcs.  
  
Edenel said, _Now,_ came to his feet. A score of arrows arched into the air. A score of figures crumpled onto the ice. The rest of the orcs howled and those not bound to the sledges hurled themselves into a run, weapons out. They must be wearing nail-studded boots, Edenel surmised, to grip the ice.  
Calmly, he ordered, “Retreat.”  
  
The _Ithiledhil_ drew back, moving slowly enough for the orcs to think they might catch them, far enough to avoid the black arrows that skipped and skittered behind them. At intervals, they turned as one and fired again, again.  
  
The orcs followed, shouting war-cries.  
  
It was difficult to see where the ice met the land, but Edenel had walked this route before and gauged it. As soon as he felt rock under the snow, he turned, lifted his head to the sky.  
_Coldagnir_!

As soon as he had heard that Angmar meant to attack the Lossoth he knew how to counter it, and it had meant reaching out to Coldagnir.  
He had known what Coldagnir was when he saw him, his appearance notwithstanding. But he had not known _whom_ he was until he heard the name spoken and translated it from Black Speech into Sindarin.

 _Yes,_ the Balrog had replied out of a weighted silence. _I will do it._  
  
_Now!_ Edenel cried.

A streak of fire hurtled out of the sky. The Balrog landed, wings of flame arched above him. He braced himself on one foot, hands flat against the ice...An orb of fire burned outward.

Steam heaved upward in roiling clouds. Cracks opened with the explosive sound of whipcracks as the ice melted followed by booming thunder from further away as it broke into floes that groaned, colliding.  
  
Edenel was blinded by the fog, but through it he could still see the Balrog's fire. Through the turmoil, screams arose as the orcs, unable to flee, heavily armed and armoured, plunged into the killingly cold waters.

Edenel smiled. Behind him, he could hear the Lossoth's fierce cheering.  
  
Coldagnir descended lightly, loose hair falling in ribbons of heat. Then the fire was withdrawn, leaving only the ember-glow of bronze eyes.  
  
“There are no survivors,” he said. “The water will freeze again of course, but I can ensure it does not remain that way.”  
  
Edenel nodded. “Good,” he said simply. Then, “You have my thanks.” His mouth twisted. “It seems ironic that this is the second time we have both, supposedly, been on the same side.”

Coldagnir gazed at him. “I certainly believed thou wert under the dominion of Melkor. So did he.”  
  
“I feel I ought to thank some god for that.”

“No god,” Coldagnir disagreed. “It was thine own strength.”

“I do not know what it was.” Edenel shrugged, his eyes tracing the beautiful, unearthly face. “You too, know what it is to be changed.”

“I changed, yes. I darkened. I fell from what I had been. Thou didst not.”  
  
Edenel grimaced, made to turn away. To his surprise, Coldagnir laid a hand on his arm. His mind flashed to Utumno, to the black, in-burning fire of the Baltogs, their strength and cruelty. He had seen Elves roasted alive from the inside out as they were raped by the fire demons, and die screaming. Had Coldagnir been one of the rapists? He did not know; save in size, they had all looked alike. A shudder ripped through his gut. Burnt-bronze eyes held his.  
“I know what I was,” Coldagnir said. Fog rolled in from the steaming sea, collected like pearls on his hair. “What I did. Thou didst triumph over what was done to thee. I did not.”  
  
“And will you triumph this time?” Edenel raised his brows.  
  
The full lips pressed together. “I have to. We are moving toward the greatest war this world has known, and I have chosen whom to fight for.”

Ednel nodded. He felt it, too. A collision course bringing titan powers together. Not this war, not Angmar, this was simply its herald.  
“I will not let Gothmog overcome me, not this time. And I am bound to Fëanor by blood oath,” Coldagnir continued. “He told me that if I was cast into the Void he would break me out of it. I cannot fail him.”

“I had heard somewhat of this.” Edenel began to walk toward the Lossoth village. “Why would you bind yourself to him?” he asked curiously.

Coldagnir hesitated, then; “I wanted to be trusted. It seemed the only way.” And, “He is irresistible. He is also,” he added, “more than even he seems. Melkor feared him, what was within him, what he could become. What he will become.”  
  
“And do you know what he will become?”  
  
“No. But perhaps _he_ does. His soul knows no boundaries.”

 _Fëanor. My brother's son._ Irresistible, Coldagnir said. Yes.

_He will know thee. There is a shadow of glamour over thee, but it is not enough. He will see thy blood._

Edenel stopped. _Who told you? Vanimórë?_

_No-one. I can see it. Thou art Finwëion._

He had not used glamour in thousands of years before joining the Imladrians; it had not been necessary in the Wood, and he did not enjoy employing the arts that survival in Utumno had demanded. And perhaps, he thought, he did not truly want to be overlooked, his subconscious mind overruling his conscious will.  
  
“I was,” he said.

Coldagnir stepped back, flaming wings clapping out, blasting aside the fog.  
“If Fëanor decides thou art still Finwëion,” he said with a smile. “Thou wilt be.”  
  
“It is not so simple,” Edenel said as his heart lifted and his throat closed. “You should understand that.”  
  
“Is anything?” Coldagnir smiled faintly. “But Fëanor has a very clear vision of what he wants, and will see a way to it. He was in Imladris in the autumn; he said he would come to the council in the spring, he and Fingolfin.” He looked a query. Edenel could not answer.

Coldganir saluted him, then lifted from the earth like an outbound meteor.

Edenel closed his eyes. He sent a thought south.  
_Bainalph. It is done. We suffered no casualties._

A blaze of relief came to him. _Thank the One. Come back now, Edenel. Here, the world moves on to spring._

_You would still have me go to Imladris?_

_Yes,_ Bainalph returned. _I would. I will come with you._

  
On their return to the Greenwood, Thranduil had called a council and, hearing that Angmar meant to attack the Lossoth, he had said, “What can we do? They should at least be warned.”

Edenel glanced at Bainalph.  
“The _Ithiledhil_ could go.” They had trained where Utumno's feet bounded the ice-swept north, although this he did not say. And he had a plan.

“Then why not just ask the Balrog to melt the ice-bay?” Thranduil asked when he told them of it.

“I could,” Edenel agreed. “But we want Angmar and its creatures to fear us, know that wherever they go, we are there.” He felt ancient hatred chill his smile. “And we should cultivate the Lossoth. They were never many, but they are a courageous people, and it will be their war, too. I do not know if they will treat with a Fire-demon, no matter how beautiful, but they have known Elves, and Men too, before the North Kingdoms crumbled.”

“True enough,” the King asked, “Bainalph?”

“I will go with them.”

“That I forbid,” the King said implacably. “You have come here to rest and will do so until the spring.”  
  
The green-gold eyes blazed at him. Bainalph's mouth tightened.

“I have to agree,” Edenel said. He pressed his booted foot against Bainalph's. “It is but three days until Midwinter. We will leave two days after.”

  
“What will you do?” he asked Bainalph later, as they rode back to Alphgarth.  
  
Bainalph stared straight ahead. “I cannot lead the Rite,” he replied. “It is hard for me anyhow, to play the Winter King and now...but my people deserve their Night. Will you act as my proxy? Not for your people alone, but for Alphgarth also?”

Edenel waited, then said, “But what of you, Bainalph? Do you wish to participate in the Night, or no? Because you know what it is like with us, when we free ourselves.”  
  
“I have not lost my desires.” Bainalph turned his head. “But I cannot have _him._ If that were to happen, and now, with the Queen returned, he would feel all the old guilt and blame me. Again. Well, I have paid for my foolishness once. I will not rip open my heart for him to feast on. He is bound to me, yes, but he is also bound to his wife and that binding is far older. No matter that she will become the Winter King and so balance the scales, laying with many, as he has since her death, he would still find a way to blame me if I succumbed to him.”

Edenel could not deny it. Thranduil's submission to a marriage he had not sought had driven hatred and ice deep into his heart. Since he would never turn it upon the wife who was innocent, he would search for another. And that one had always been Bainalph.

“I do not trust his apparent contrition,” Bainalph said quietly. “So, it took my rape and torture and near death to make him see that he cared for me? I do not say love, because I am unsure if he ever has loved me. He wants to _own_ me, and I would welcome anything he wished to do to me, but I will not suffer his contempt. Not again.”

“Neither should you,” Edenel agreed.  
  
A quiver ran through Bainalph's slim body. Watching him, the unconscious invitation to ravish that was as much a part of him as his hair and eyes, Edenel wanted to pull him from the saddle, take him down, there, and have him, giving pain to take it away. The Rite was almost on them, and the release of the bonds which constrained the _Ithiledhil_ at all other times. For Tindómion, he would have broken that tradition, but it was not to be, or at least, not then.

“Very well,” he said. “I will be the Winter King for Alphgarth.”

And so he had been. After a summer and autumn of abstinence, the _Ithiledhil's_ self-imposed restraints were dangerously close to breaking. They did not engage in casual sex; every feeling went too deep, the things they had done, been forced to do, in Utumno. Sex would always be pain for them, and terrible, taboo pleasures, but they had reclaimed it from Melkor, and used it to unleash the memories that they could never forget. Sex and war, those two things lifted the lid on the boiling cauldron, allowing the pressure to escape.

Edenel had asked Bainalph because he knew that, whatever his intentions, he could not control himself once the time was on him. It was the same all through the Wood but darker for the _Ithiledhil_ , more perilous, far more savage.

  
It began when the sun went down on the longest night, but all the day it had been building, a prickle of heat to the loins, a restless urge, a slow bleeding-away of control. The forest fell silent as the last light ebbed from the sky. It was still, crisp.  
  
Edenel had stripped himself naked. His cock was slick with oil, and pulsed as it filled painfully with blood. His hair was loosed and he felt it slide against his flesh like a tormenting caress. Every sense was honed to a razor-edge. There came a stretch of silence as he looked within himself, to the prison of his memories — and of his own will, with profound relief, he unlocked the door.

He raised his head to the sky and _screamed_. It was pain and outrage, fury and sorrow; it was a cry of the damned, and it rose into the night toward the winter stars joined by all the _Ithiledhil_. There were some whom had heard it, but only Bainalph had partaken in the rites. Eyes, wild and bright, turned toward him, and as the cacophony ended, the Elves of Alphgarth _fled_.

Edenel's blood ran ice-fire. He was the hunter, choosing those he would bring down. Most did not run too far or too fast, but fell before him, offering themselves hungrily, men, women, faces he knew and those he did not. And always, after, the need would rise in him again and his eyes swept around to find his next prey.  
  
There was no time, no knowledge in him of how many he had taken when he looked up and saw Bainalph. The leap of fear in the prince's eyes inflamed him. Naked and beautiful in the night, Bainalph stared at him, then bolted away.  
  
This one proved a challenge. Fleet as any deer, snowy hair flung back in a provocative banner, he sprinted along animal tracks, leaped a stream, took to the trees at the end, until he came to the grounds of the great house that stood silent and empty. A light burned in one window, and the door of that chamber crashed shut almost in Edenel's face. His breath shuddered light and fast in his lungs as he set a hand to the handle and turned it.  
  
A fire burned bright in the hearth though there was nothing cold within Edenel that night, and the room seemed hot. He paced through it to the bedchamber. Bainalph stood at bay, back pressed against the wall hangings. His white skin glittered with tiny points of perspiration, his eyes were wide, a flush blazed across his cheekbones. He looked like sin, waiting to be devoured.  
  
Edenel lifted him against the wall. Longs legs wrapped around him as he thrust in, and Bainalph pushed himself down with a cry that caught in his throat.

Edenel responded to the shameless, abject beauty of his surrender like a fire whipped by storm-winds. He took, poured himself again and again into feral, savage sex as his mind spun him back into the depths of time, to Utumno. He met the onslaught of horror with furious lust.  
  
The night danced itself into intoxicated madness as the moved from wall to the rugs, then to the bed, where Bainalph arched above him, furnace-hot, slippery with oil and seed, his voice gone hoarse with pleading. And then, suddenly, he was pushed forward. Edenel saw a hand fisted tight in the flooding white hair. Over it, the King, eyes burned ice-blue and mad this night as all were.

There was a distant thought in Edenel's mind that Thranduil should not be here, but it faded, crushed out of existence by the imperative, unstoppable hunger that drove him. When he felt, where his body joined Bainalph's the sliding push of another cock, he arched his neck on the pillows with a groan. Bainalph stretched around him, around both of them, with gasping cries, hands clenching on Edenel's shoulders. He panted “No, no, no!' as Thranduil forced himself in, and the friction drove Edenel toward a deeper, greater madness. He gripped Bainalph's hips and the King drove deep and hard. His hand wrenched Bainalph's head back, and Edenel saw his lips parted over white teeth, heard the ragged sobs.  
“Please, _no._ No more!” It was the voice of a man pushed beyond his limits. Edenel had heard such voices as Elves were broken in Utumno. His hips jerked as he sought the heat, the stroke of Thranduil's cock, the clasp of Bainalph's passage. The prince writhed, grinding himself against Edenel, his bones shaking, words falling unintelligibly as they stretched him between them, their harsh groans a counterpoint to his hopeless, despairing cries.  
  
The world went white. Edenel spilled, pulsing, felt the warmth of Thranduil's own seed, the rhythm of his release. Bainalph stiffened, arms quivering and his essence flooded hot over Edenel's skin. They moved again and again as he milked them, his body straining, breath ragged. It went on a long time; they were loathe to end it, but at last Bainalph drained them. He shuddered, dropped limp and supple against Edenel.

Through half-open eyes, Edenel saw the King draw back, dark-gold hair massing around his face. He was breathing heavily as he shook it back, watching, and then he smiled, looked, for a moment as if he might laugh from sheer triumph. He turned away, there was a stream of sharp candle smoke as he walked from the room.

The windows were grey with dawn. Edenel lay replenished, eased (and never eased). His nightmare-memories slunk back into their prison (until the next time). He eased out of Bainalph, laid him gently on the bed, and sat up. For a while, his legs would not hold him, and his steps were still unsteady as he went to a side table and the wine-jug. He took a cup to Bainalph and raised him to drink. He half-choked, then his long lashes fluttered and he put a hand to the cup and drained it to the dregs. Edenel gulped his own, feeling it spread into his stomach, anchoring him to the world.

Bainalph sank back down into exhausted sleep. Edenel poured more wine, set logs on the fire and lay down beside him. He wanted to be there when Bainalph woke. Thranduil, he thought with cold anger. He had known neither of them would be capable of refusing him on such a night when all boundaries were thrown down. Which was exactly why he had come, naturally.

But later, Bainalph said absolutely nothing. It was possible he did not remember. Edenel did not always remember himself whom he had taken. Then it struck him that Bainalph had not actually _seen_ the King that, for all he knew it might be another of the _Ithiledhil_. He had no reason to think otherwise. Well, then, let him believe it. The green-gold eyes held no shadow; they were sated, calm, as they always were after the Rites.

“Was it too much?” was all that Edenel asked him seriously, gently, because for all the prince desired submission and pain, that last act had gone beyond consent, driven him over the edge. But they had all been more than half-mad, and one had to remember that Bainalph was a man who reveled in the _Anguish_.

“No,” he said, smiling, and there was no lie in either the smile or his eyes. His lips were still bruised, bitten, luscious.

There was no more time after that, as the _Ithiledhil_ prepared for what would be a swift journey into the far north. Edenel continued to reach out to Bainalph as they traveled and was brought to the realization that no, the prince truly did _not_ know that Thranduil had been there that night. Perhaps he did not intend Bainalph to know; perhaps having him had been enough. For now.

 _Yes,_ he said to Bainalph, from the north, as the Lossoth greeted the _Ithiledhil_ with cheers. _We will come back._  
He had words to say to Thranduil, and perhaps more (or less) than words to Tindómion Maglorion in Imladris. And it was possible that Fëanor might be there...  
  


OooOooO

The stars drowned in the still waters of Gaear Gwathluin. The night lay on the thin edge of frost.

The longest night of winter. And now, the rites associated with them were embroidering themselves back into the Noldor's minds.  
Fëanor had begun it by celebrating _Nost-na-Lothion_ , Finrod had embraced the rite of the Summer King. Before the Great Journey, the Noldor of Cuiviénen had performed their own rituals. Valinor had forbidden them, but they only slept in the souls of the Elves. Now, they had been awakened.  
  
But there would be no _public_ celebration of lust and freedom this night. The balance was too delicate, still. An uneasy peace had come down and the topic of conversation was the war in the north. It was, ironically, the safest.  
  
Tonight though, was not peaceful. Midwinter demanded its due.

Fingolfin offed his heavy robes and crown, looked around the quiet of his unfinished palace. There had been feasts to greet the return of the Sun even when he was High King but they had not carried such a weight to them, merely gratitude that though winter gripped the land its hold would loosen and spring would green the North.  
  
Now, this night carried other memories in its cold heart. Fingolfin remembered the breaking of the Dagor Bragollach in fires that had lapped almost to the walls of Barad Eithel. But was that not another cause for gratitude, that _now_ was not then? After battle and pain and tears unnumbered, they were reborn.  
  
Finrod had gone his own way. Fëanor had not prohibited him, and so he had taken Orodreth and his summer 'brides' back to the rough hills and green vales of his northern kingdom. Here, far from censorious eyes, he would take on the mantle of the Aran Rhîw.* It was not obligatory to participate, but Fingolfin thought many would, their appetites whetted by the summer rites, tantalized by their King's incestuous (at least with Glorfindel) four-way marriage. Perhaps it was Finrod, leagues away, who brought such hunger to the night.  
  
Or simply his own unslaked desire.  
  
Rites or no, each lord of the Noldor presided over a Midwinter feast and envy was directed at those invited to dine with their king and princes. Nothing truly changed, Fingolfin had thought as he considered whom to invite. He doubted Fëanor felt any similar concern, although he knew he misjudged his half-brother. Fëanor might detest the dances of politics, but he was astute enough — when he could be bothered.  
  
Fingolfin left his palace as the guests departed for their own pavilions. Next year he would be able to house them here but for now they would find greater comfort in their warm tents. And, too, they wanted to be away, many of them, to hold their own rites. Turgon had watched them bow and leave the hall through narrowed eyes. It was common knowledge he had argued with Finrod before the latter left.  
  
“I do not believe,” Fingolfin said to him under his breath. “That thou canst not understand. They are never going to be bound to the Laws of the Valar again, and neither should they be.”  
  
“It is the lack of discipline I abhor,” Turgon replied over his wine cup.  
  
“Discipline!” Fingolfin repeated. “Love, lust, passion, these are not things one applies such a word to.”

“There is naught wrong with loving one person alone, and bedding with them alone, all our lives.”  
  
“It is not wrong if it is chosen, Turgon. It is not wrong for thee and Elenwë, but it is wrong when it is enforced. As for me, I knew long ago that such a life is unnatural to an Elf of any kindred.”  
  
Turgon rose. “I will take my leave,” he said frostily.

It was merrier after he had gone, but the feast was of short duration. The night called them all. It called to Fingolfin, as he strode the empty, shadowed hallways out into the night.  
  
Chill it was, the musty scent of coming snow on the air, a cloud bank pushing in from the mountains. Fingolfin scarce felt it. He walked without destination, only to quell the rising desire. A league away, Fëanor's own palace blazed with light. He had not realized that his traitorous footsteps had lead him that way, and turned back with a frown. They had not spoken, he and Fëanor, since Imladris, and what was there to say? He had come to the bitter conclusion that Fëanor's presence there had been a challenge to him, to show that he could turn both Lómion and Eärendil toward him, capture their hearts and loyalties. And he probably could, although it seemed a curiously petty revenge. Whatever else he was, Fëanor had never been small-minded.  
  
It was clear to Fingolfin as he walked that many so-called private (though very audible) celebrations were being held. Fingon had, of course, gone to Maedhros. Fingolfin himself was more than half-hard, had been so since the sun went down. He thought of the reputed wildness of the Night of the Winter King, and Nost-na-Lothion, the first time, really, that the Noldor had been unleashed.

Fëanor, no doubt, would love to don the mantle of the Aran Rhîw but he would never embrace the summer rites as Finrod had done. Fingolfin simply could not imagine it. It was one of his own dreams to have Fëanor beneath him, writhing, crying out for more as Fingolfin took him as unmercifully, as savagely as he had always been taken (and adored it). That had not happened — yet. He was beginning to think that in the new life, as in the old, it never would.  
  
_Could I lay down as Finrod did?_ he wondered as heat sank and spread in his groin. _For so many?_ For a realm, a kingdom, binding his followers so absolutely they could not protest anything he did. Where did such questions come from? He had no intention of challenging the High Kingship but did he, in fact, want it, or at least want the power that would allow him to have his half-brother as a lover and for it to be as accepted as Finrod's own relationship with Glorfindel? Ah, but Finrod's people had felt shame for their desertion of him in Nargothrond, giving him a leverage over them that he had exploited in a way that still shocked those who saw only his milk-calm face and tender smile. They were bound indeed, but whether all of them truly accepted what he had done...? Fingolfin doubted it.  
  
Fingolfin thought that he could essay it, but did not know how to engineer it. He had the support of his followers after the doubt Turgon (and Fëanor and Fingolfin's own behavior) had sewn among them, but unless he was willing to tear apart the Noldor, he could not. Fëanor would never stand for it.  
  
He stopped, then, staring into the rising wind. Cold it was. Cold. He remembered the winds howling bitter about Barad Eithil. His hands fisted as a bloody tapestry stitched itself across his mind.  
_No._ Madness.  
  
The High Kingship, a new wife perhaps, not some-one like Anairë, a political arrangement, and a loveless marriage, but a woman who loved him, other children...

Then, seeing it, he laughed into the teeth of the wind.  
“No,” he repeated aloud to whatever powers crept about his mind, and he smiled as he slapped them away. _Thou wilt find no house-room in my mind. Thou knowest what I want._

He shook himself free, felt far-off anger and, after a moment he walked again, inland, away from the sea of drowned stars. The ground was hard and dry under his feet; there had been no snow this winter as yet, though that would change tonight, just frosts and a cold wind. They would need rain, come spring, for the crops. He almost laughed as his preoccupations, but they had all had to learn such things as Exiles, gone from the bounty of Valinor where they had never had to concern themselves with drought or floods, where every stem of wheat seemed to grow as if precisely ordered.  
  
Fingolfin did not miss anything of Valinor, except the secret magnificence of Fëanor as his lover.

A shooting star burned across the sky, blue white. His eyes followed its path along the curve of the heavens as it fell earthward — and found himself looking into his half-brother's eyes.

He halted, they both did and the night was numinous with the white heat that flashed between them, silent and titanic. Unresolved.  
  
Neither spoke, Fingolfin held by the spell of night and power. Fëanor's eyes were diamonds, backlit by the fire behind them. His face was porcelain, expressionless.

Fingolfin turned away. His steps felt — were — forced, as if he were fighting against a magnet.

He was.  
  
He did not hear Fëanor following him, but he felt it and quickened his pace. There was too much between them, too much fire in the night, power held waiting to flood a willing vessel and burn through the encampment as it was, even now, burning through Finrod's kingdom — if some-one would but open the door to it.

Abruptly, he span round, facing his half-brother. Fëanor stopped. They circled each other like wolves, unspeaking, until Fingolfin turned away again, walked again, faster, and Fëanor was behind him, shadowing, almost on his heels.

Out of nowhere, or the pregnant, half-frozen air with the first kiss of snow upon his face, a fierce smile curved Fingolfin's lips. Perhaps Fëanor was drunk, or the night was affecting him as it had Fingolfin. It did not matter. He was no dog to turn show his belly whenever his half-brother willed it.

He snapped around. Fëanor was so close he could indeed smell wine on his breath, but so it was on his own, and he could see no other sign of inebriation. It was, anyhow, rare to see an adult Elf drunk. But intoxicated Fëanor certainly was. It was in his the incandescence of his eyes. Fingolfin had seen it before, when he swore the Oath, when Fëanor had come to him after in his rooms and taken him against the door.

 _Two fine hands slammed into the door beside his braced shoulders and he dropped his own reflexively, thrusting them against the hard body that barred his. He stared into eyes that blazed like the Silmarilli themselves._  
Fëanáro was disheveled, his silk shirt torn at the neck, the loose mane of ebon hair billowed to his thighs. His aura was hard and as brilliant as forge-heated gems.  
''And wilt thou indeed follow me?'' he whispered. **

Any-one could have come in. It had not mattered.

“No,” Fingolfin said, smiling. One word and then he sprang into a run.  
  
It felt marvelous to shed his dignity and duties, to feel the biting air against his face, its fingers pulling at his hair, but there was an exhilaration in him that had nothing to do with freedom, rather the reverse. He was running from something (some-one) that he could never be free of. Not even death had been able to sever the cords that bound him to Fëanor. Nothing could. He did not know if, in some buried chamber of his heart, he wished something could, because would it not make everything so much easier, would it not have spared him impossible grief?  
  
Too late for that. Much too late.

And he was running out of pure delight because Fëanor was here, despite Fingolfn's brutal, necessary repudiation, _Fëanor was here._  
  
The land skimmed under his boots, the jewels bound in his hair chimed like tiny bells, a lure teasing Fëanor on as he sped up, sprinting now, as he had once in the Games in Valinor.  
  
He was aware of lights from tents, clusters that glowed in the dark, of music, singing and other sounds that met the demand of the longest night, but then they faded into the land and there was only himself, flying on two feet, Fëanor pursuing.

Flakes of snow struck his face, melted away like a dream-lover fading. He was not chilled now, but hot, heart blazing. He crossed a paved roadway, heard the rustle of bare-leaved trees ahead, and surged into an ever-greater speed — then he leaped, twisting in the air to come down facing Fëanor, and threw himself forward.  
  
The collision took them both down, hard, Fëanor's breath leaving him in a gasp. Fingolfin straddled him, saw snow settle like jewels on the feathery rim of lashes. It was like looking through brilliantly lit windows, but behind them was no comforting fire — the hall was burning.  
  
He thrust his knee between Fëanor's legs, pushed his hands into the silken mass of hair and brought his lips down. The kiss held no tenderness, gave no quarter, it snarled and clashed like great cats battling for supremacy.

Fëanor drew in a long breath as they broke apart, face like starfall against the jet flood of hair. Fingolfin straddled him, grinding down, and his hunger, his tamped-down rage was caught in an eruption that he felt explode through his blood, making everything seem unreal, far-away. Everything except this. Except Fëanor.  
  
The silk shirts, fine as a cloud's sigh, ripped, their tunics, boots breeches were tossed aside. Fingolfin felt the whip of the wind, the snow as distant things. His body was afire, matching Fëanor's as he slammed his half-brother down again.

Thoughts were transitory, snapping into his mind and away again like war-banners seen through a storm. He saw himself as if from a distance, draw the dagger at his waist, the muted sheen of its blade, the slice of it into his skin. At the hot well of blood he was within himself again.  
  
He wrapped his hand around his length, felt himself pulse, slick now with blood then drove wet fingers into Fëanor's tight heat, felt him shudder as he pushed them deeper, curling.  
  
Fëanor bucked, head going back, lips parted against white teeth. Fingolfin withdrew, and poised himself then pressed in, breaching the tight muscle. Like a warrior driving a sword into a mortal enemy, he drove himself in to the root.  
  
Ah, Hells, gods, it was, it was... _indescribable_. He rode into Fëanor, the heat wrapping him, milking him, nudging that spot that made Fëanor gasp and groan and dig his fingers into Fingolfin's hips, holding him as he parted those long, beautiful legs wider, raised himself to watch Fingolfin plunging into him. Then his eyes came up and Fingolfin stared back seeing the gemfire radiance in which he burned, feeling the orgasm rising toward pain as Fëanor gripped his own shaft, twisting, drawing, working himself. He was cursing through moans. Fingolfin heard his name repeated over and over, a snarl of fury and pleading, could hear himself saying or thinking, he could not tell which, _Fëanor_! and a scatter of words thrown like knives through his teeth, threats, praise, promises.  
  
And then he was coming, and Fëanor arched back in a bow of silken muscle, and released, his hot passage throbbing, clenching and unclenching, as Fingolfin filled him. It was a blinding agony of pleasure that spent and regathered and spent again and again. It was familiar and forever-new, addictive, glorious. Potent. Eru! So potent. He knew that after a short time he would be roused again and wanted it, wanted to take Fëanor over and over until there were no barriers between them, nothing but the drive, the pain, the hunger mounting and mounting, the perfect agony and ecstasy of their conjoined orgasms. There was no ancient power of sexual rite in this, only them. And it was stronger than any ritual enacted in the deeps of time. Far stronger.

His breath cane in heaving gasps as he slid out of Fëanor's burning, legs unsteady as he gathered his clothes. His actions were reflexive, his mind a bleached, glassy thing, empty as his body.  
  
The snow came then in spuming whorls, setting whiteness on the hard ground. Fingolfin became aware of the sting of his cut hand, the perspiration chilling on his skin. He wrapped a piece of torn shirt about the wound, drew the knot tight with his teeth.

Behind him, Fëanor's presence was a bonfire in the night. He looked around at last, compelled, and saw him still naked, magnificent in the storm, hair whipped in a great black cloud starred with snow. He could have been some god walked out of the night to set it alight. And still he looked as _otherwhere_ as Fingolfin felt.

Fingolfin walked away. A great silence had laid its hand upon him. He did not know how he came to his tent, knew nothing at all until he woke with the dawn.

Memory lifted him from his pillows. He sat, eyes closed, as the healing cut on his hand itched and throbbed.

Unlike the morning after Nost-na-Lothion, he remembered everything, and in uncompromisingly vivid detail.  
  
And he was glad to remember.

He rose, head whirling with incredulity and wonder and a fierce exultation. But the joyful madness, that _otherness_ had gone, sunk back into him where it dwelt, always. He was not a man who practiced self-deceit. The longest night had sharpened his blood, but it had been himself alone who fueled its fires.

_And Fëanor._

He pushed back the covers and rose, saw the blood dried at his loins, not Fëanor's, at least Fingolfin had been aware enough to use his own to ease the way.

_But, blood, Eru, I used blood._

It was, somehow, deliciously barbaric.

Reaching for a furred robe he called for hot water and washed himself using the hopelessly ripped shirt he had worn last night. (Fëanor's hands had torn and wrenched, as had his own) Any blood-stained linen would be remarked on. He kicked the rags under the bed to dispose of later, then dressed, unwound the jewels from his hair and braided it. Viewing himself in the long mirror he saw only composure and pride. It had been nowhere in evidence last night. He was honestly surprised that he had not woken to Fëanor's sword at his throat.

But, apart from the distant morning sounds of the encampment, there was no sign that he had plunged his hand into the flames. He wondered what Fëanor had done, after. He spent the day waiting for his-half brother to stride furiously into his camp.  
  
In one of the workshops close to his own palace, Fëanor straightened, admitting finally that he could not concentrate. He spread his hands flat on the table feeling the grain of the wood beneath his fingertips.

He had wondered what Fingolfin, aloof, (but not so much as he appeared) beautiful Fingolfin, whom had all but called him a besotted child would do if Fëanor sent desire directly into his heart riding on the power of Midwinter Night.

For a while he had been consumed by hated, and yes, by _hurt._. He knew full well that Fingolfin could not forgive him for his abandonment in Araman, but he had thought with all that lay between them, in the lightest touch, a single hot glance, that there was love, still. He had been amused by Fingolfin's struggles against him; they echoed the old games they had played in Tirion, but he wondered if Fingolfin fell back on them because they were the only way he had known. It was always Fëanor chasing, and Fingolfin eluding. Fëanor wanted Fingolfin so much in love with him that he could not resist. But then, it would not be Fingolfin, whose self-mastery was impressive save when the fires in his soul broke through it. And there was a greater sense of triumph in having to work for him.

And then, when he had fumed, furious, tried to root Fingolfin out of his heart and mind, he had found he could not, no more than he could have uprooted his sons.

“He did what he did _for_ thee,” Maglor told him. “Father, though knowest if thou wert to leave, go somewhere and rule only th people we would follow thee, but thou art High King of _all_ the Noldor. And Fingolfin wants thee to be that.”  
  
It was true, though Fëanor chafed at the rules imposed on him, the closed minds that clung to the Valar's laws like children at their mother's skirts. That would change, he vowed. So he had told Glorfindel to take him to Imladris not only because he wanted to speak with Eärendil but to see Fingolfin without the trappings of power and state that shouldered between them. He knew exactly what his half-brother would think he was doing, and it had been impossible not to give his beliefs, erroneous though they were, something to feed on, but although he did want both Eärendil and Lómion's fealty, he would not steal them from Fingolfin. Fingolfin, who seemed not to realize his own glittering charisma, his jewel-like beauty.

And so, to the longest night, when he had fed a vein of purest desire to Fingolfin and found it answered, but not in a way he had expected. Fëanor's passion was inflammatory and all-consuming, a not unfamiliar feeling, but one where he was not in control. And neither had Fingolfin been. That was what had shocked him. It should not have, seeing Fingolfin's wrath-mad charge to challenge Morgoth, yet it did. He had not imagined Fingolfin's need for dominance, the power and light in his eyes like blazing stars. Surprise, as much as anything, had defeated Fëanor's will to fight back, and curiosity too. No-one had ever had him before. He had thought Fingolfin was content to be the one taken. He had been very, very wrong.

It had been beyond glory. The savage beauty of it, Fingolfin slicing himself to get blood, using it to ease his way. The _feel_ of him inside. That act did not belong in the mannered white halls of Tirion, it had been done by one who defied gods and embraced the ancient, perilous fire of the Elves.

Alone, his aches and soreness easing, Fëanor discovered the excitement of knowing that there were facets to Fingolfin he had not imagined.

He smiled.

  


OooOooO

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aran Rhîw - Winter King
> 
> ** From _I Will Lead And Thou Shalt Follow_.
> 
> Thank you for reading :) If you liked anything I would greatly appreciate a comment. Thank you.


	70. ~ A Spring Night In Imladris ~

**~ A Spring Night In Imladris ~**

  


~ _How art thou?_

 _I am fine, father,_ Celegorm responded at once, indeed rather too quickly.  
  
_And Finrod?_ Fëanor asked amusedly.

 _Finrod is surprising._ A touch of darkness uncurled in his mind-voice like smoke. _Yet I swear he still plays a game._

_And thou art not?_

Celegorm laughed shortly. _Maybe._

 _What wilt thou do?_ Fëanor asked, gently. _When a year and a day has passed?_  
  
_I am coming back,_ Celegorm replied, unhesitating. _Because he is not going to change until the power balance between us is what it should be. He will not acknowledge that what he did was wrong, and he placed me into this sham of a...marriage. Deliberately._ Anger...and the thread of desire, rampant and sin-coloured. _There are...compensations,_ he added, and Fëanor imagined there undoubtedly were. _But there is a wall between us._  
  
_I understand,_ he assured his son. _Yet Finrod has sworn fealty to me, and prepares for war._

_I do not fault him on his loyalty to thee, father._  
  
_But?_

_It is still a game to him, this year. Me. Since we were bonded he has done nothing but retreat, show me the Finrod every-one sees._

Fëanor lifted the sword he had been working on, sighted down the blade.  
_Sometimes we do run from those we love._

 _But I know what he truly is,_ Celegorm flashed. _I know his depth, his emotions, and now he hides them like some coy Vanya maiden._

Almost, Fëanor laughed, but he knew what his son meant. Finrod lifted a perfectly sculpted face and persona to the world, and was utterly impenetrable, at least to most people if not to Fëanor or Celegorm. In fact, he he was like his father, Finarfin. And how much of that had been pretense, or a shield worn over a guarded heart? Fëanor would discover that, one day, though he was a long way from forgiving Finarfin for turning his back on the Noldor.

 _Thou art too close, I think,_ he said, bringing his thoughts back to the present. _There is not enough space between thee._  
  
_Hardly could there be, with four of us and an unfinished city,_ Celegorm retorted. _I will return when this is over. I do not want this, father. I want him, but not this binding. It is farcical. And I want,_ need _my family._

 _And we need thee, but Maedhros has Fingon,_ Fëanor commented.

_They do not share the same home._

Which was true enough. For all their love, those two did not live together.  
_Thou doth want Finrod on thine own terms, not on his._

 _Yes._ Without apology or hesitation. _Because this has_ all _been on his terms._

And that was not healthy for any relationship, Fëanor knew. He could understand Finrod, and permitted himself a smile. The Everlasting Dark _had_ changed him; before it he would have been unwilling to consider another's viewpoint, but he did not think Finrod was _right._ Far more did he comprehend his son's frustration and resentment at living intimately with a man who refused to show himself. It was similar to his own relationship with Fingolfin since their rebirth. Fingolfin too, raised a shield against him. Or had, until last night. He savoured the memory, still surprised, still wonderfully aroused by the memory.  
_Then play the game thine own way,_ he advised.

_I intend to, father._

Fëanor replaced the sword carefully. It was beautiful, he thought without arrogance, only satisfaction in the creation, and awaited only the sheath which one of the leather-workers was finishing.  
It was a gift for Fingolfin, for when they went to war, fighting together as they always should have fought together.

OooOooO

The greening of the northern world came with soft southerly winds, the rising of sap, an unfurling of leaf and flower. The sun hung above the horizon for longer each day.

And Imladris held its council. Riders came in from Lindon, from the Greenwood. Glorfindel brought Fëanor and Fingolfin among others. Two of the attendees came unannounced into the courtyard, causing a stir as they arrived. A servant went running to Elladan and Elrohir, who came and lead them to a rich chamber.

“It is good to be b-back,” Elgalad smiled, fresh from his bath, silver hair coiled up. Vanimórë noticed his slight trip over words far more now than he had before that night in Umbar. How easy would it be to fake such an impediment? Easy enough, he guessed.  
  
He gestured. “Go, my dear. Bainalph and Edenel are here. I will bathe.”

Elgalad kissed him on the brow. It felt like a benediction.

Alone, Vanimórë walked into the bathing chamber and shed his clothes. He sank into the swirling water and tipped his head back.  
  
The merchant Edric had not wintered in Umbar; but journeyed back to Dale, aided by the surprisingly mild northern winter,. After a short stay in the bustling town, Vanimórë and Elgalad rode north around the Greenwood then veered south to cross the mountains at the High Pass. The choice of route was deliberate; Vanimórë wanted to see what stirred, but the land was silent, the mountains empty of threat. It had all gone North, to Angmar.

There were quicker and easier ways to for him to gather information, but preferred, when possible, to use more mundane methods; he had relied on them for long enough, after all.

And he had wanted to be alone with Elgalad, though it tormented him like the ache from an old wound. Because there was, dreadfully, no desire, and he _missed it_.

Their relationship had changed in Umbar. Vanimórë had never truly accepted comfort from any-one, never lowered his internal barriers so far, never allowed himself to trust any-one, burden them with his weight. Nevertheless, Elgalad had shouldered it.

The journey had been...strange. He found himself watching Elgalad, seeking for the one whom had spoken to Dana with such force and fearlessness. A deep vein of gentleness ran through Elgalad, but there had been nothing gentle about him in Umbar that night; he had burned like a white furnace. Vanimórë found himself looking under the jewel of Elgalad's face into (unforgivably) his mind. He found nothing untoward, nothing he did not expect, and yet...he was not entirely sure that he believed what he was seeing. It was paranoia, he told himself, bleeding over from Dana's deception. There was no-one more genuine and honest than Elgalad, or more transparent. And yet...  
  
Nothing about Elgalad had changed, he told himself. Nothing.

He could not speak of it when Elgalad, with his sweet, disarming smile questioned why Vanimórë scrutinized him, instead he talked of Coldagnir and Eonwë, how they had revealed that the Maia had been enslaved by the Valar, that they were spirits of the world and beyond, not lesser Powers, but completely separate from the Valar. That news had flashed through Imladris and New Cuiviénen, through Imladris, the Greenwood to the Western Shores. Vanimórë had never given the origins of the Ainur much thought, more concerned with their actions, and the knowledge was as shocking in its way as Dana's unmasking, if less painful. He thought of Sauron whom had never, in thousands of years, so much as hinted that his own origin differed from Melkor's. So what had he been? What _was_ he? (Foolish and lackwit to think of him as gone) Vanimórë did not think that his father had been enslaved by Melkor, or not at first, but rather seen some-one he desired to follow — and found himself trapped.  
  
_Thou didst often say there was much I did not know, father._

It was a relief to reach Imladris, though Dana's words sounded a sour note in his mind, echoing. No one wanted him, no-one accepted him. So be it. When the time came he would depart into the south. But not yet.

Bathed and changed, he took a cup of wine, looking down from the long windows. Elladan had told him that the young Mordorian's had settled, insofar as they ever could, and been out on patrol. The seven men they liberated had spent the winter recovering, attaching themselves to their former officers. It was thought that they would remain, indeed where could they go? They had not experienced the same horrors as Kashan, but they had seen enough and were not men who fled from horrors.

The air was sweet, the sun warm upon Vanimórë's head as he strode through the gardens. Voices lilted through open windows, music came from somewhere and, more distantly the sound of a forge.  
  
He found the young men who were not entirely Men any-more relaxing over wine. Their casual clothes and damp hair indicated that they had been to the baths. They trained hard, he had been told, and daily. Naturally, he had replied, it was what they had been used to. What surprised him was that Lómion and Eärendil were with them. Their voices were soft with the ease of companionship. For a moment, Vanimórë observed them, seeing the greater, deeper changes in his proteges.

He doubted the wisdom (what wisdom?) of his 'gift' to them, but still felt he had owed them something for what amounted to his desertion of Mordor in the heady madness of his freedom. At least they were among Elves for the most part, not left alone to fend for themselves in a world of Men.

“ _Sire!_ ” Kashan came to his feet, face alight with welcome, and then all three were at his feet and bending the knee. Their hair had grown, Vanimórë noted, Narok's was twisted into ropes, Vaija and Kashan's were braided back.  
  
“Be at ease,” Vanimórë said. “I am sorry to interrupt thy game.”

He gestured for them to rise, nodded at Lómion, and inclined his head to Eärendil who stared and came to his feet.  
“Thou art Vanimórë,” he stated. “I have heard much of thee.”

“Greetings, Eärendil.” Vanimórë surveyed the beautiful face closely, saw the wounds under it, cracks and chasms, some skinning over, others still raw. They would take long to heal, if they ever did. He thought none of them would ever really heal.

“We have reports, Sire,” Kashan said presenting him with a stack of parchment. Vanimórë would have waved it away, but he understood the young men still needed structure. Lómion smiled briefly.  
“They have been well-trained,” he said.

“Of course,” Vanimórë replied with a glint. “They were bred to conquer a world.”

Lómion cast up his eyes. Narok offered Vanimórë a seat and brought wine. Vanimórë disposed himself, crossed one leg over the other.

“I saw what happened,” Eärendil said quietly. “We all did. I say this because I know it is...a deep betrayal to have one's trust broken. I never fully trusted the Valar, but I did not quite believe them capable of...” He lifted his shoulders.

“I thank thee,” Vanimórë said simply. “It was a lesson I shall not forget. So,” he changed the subject. “Who is here?”

“The Greenwood,” Lómion said. “Prince Bainalph and Edenel of the _thiledhil_ , Tindómion and Gil-galad from Lindon. Glorfindel will bring Fëanor and Fingolfin.” His pale skin tinted. Vanimórë hid a smile in his wine-cup.

“And how is Túrin?”

“Well enough. Better since Beleg returned. He seems — not that I have any experience — a normal boy, but he dreams at night, sometimes. He will not say what he dreams of.”

“Hmm.” Vanimórë pondered. “It may not only be the abuse he dreams of. Thou knowest whom he is?” he asked Eärendil, who nodded.  
  
“I hope he does not remember his first life yet,” Lómion commented. “Knowest thou his father comes here at whiles, but not his mother?”

“It does not surprise me.” But he felt no guilt. He had wondered if Cell were influenced by Dana, but it made no difference. The risk was still there. He shrugged it off and, frowning slightly, took the reports from the young warriors. “I am glad to see thee well,” he said to them. “Take me to thy Men.”  
  
The soldiers had been housed not in the barracks, but in chambers close by. That was sensible.

“They have been training, my lord,” Narok said. “once they recovered.”  
  
“Malnourished,” Vanimórë said. “And nightmare-ridden.”

“Yes, Sire,” Vaija confirmed gravely. “But they have had the best care, and have been waiting for you. I do not think they really believed you had survived.”

Vanimórë's soldiers had always been glad to see him, but perhaps none more than these, the three he had changed, and the seven that he now greeted. They, too, were relaxing, but came to their feet at once before sinking down on one knee, heads bowed. Many of them were ashamed, for they had been possessed by Malantur's mind and sent after their erstwhile officers to kill them, but Vanimórë sensed the uplifting of their hearts when he entered. Still, and after everything, they looked to him for their purpose. He spent time reassuring them, asking them, though not in detail, of their time in Carn Dûm. Everything he needed to know he had already taken from their minds, but some needed to speak, and to ask him about the collapse of their world, so brutal and unforeseen.  
  
Darkness closed over the valley as he sat with them over wine, talking calmly until they had relaxed a little, or as much as they ever would in his company. He told them he would watch them training tomorrow.

He lit lamps when he returned to his chambers, and sat down to look over the reports, which were meticulous, as he had expected. There was something to be said for Mordor's training of its Mannish legions, though they had never been used. It was almost, _almost_ a pity because they had been a secret for so long. The orcs were nothing more than shock troops, the Men who would march out after them to war were something wholly different, men to be proud of.

Vanimórë set the parchment aside, looked out into the night, into the past. Elgalad was not yet back, though the feast would be soon, he judged, and debated whether or not to attend or head north and spy out the land.

His deliberations were interrupted by a knock at the outer door. He rose to open it admitting, rather unexpectedly, the Lady Fanari with two maidservants carrying neatly folded garments. They bowed their heads gracefully.  
“My lord Vanimórë,” Fanari said. “Here are clothes for thyself and Elgalad for the feast.”

“Thou art most thoughtful, lady.”

Fanari's eyes lit with amusement. “Glorfindel has said that thou shouldst be attired in something other than, and I quote him ' _that everlasting back gear.'_ ”  
  
“How kind,” Vanimórë smothered a laugh. “Whom am I supposed to impress?”

“I do not think thou doth need to impress any-one.” She regarded him frankly, which was refreshing after the sly innuendo of Dana, the only woman he had ever spent much time around after his sister's death.  
  
“Black is...unfussy,” he said straight-faced. “Utilitarian.”

“We will have in attendance one High King, two former High Kings, three princes, and nobles.” Fanari tapped her lips. “Thou shouldst have seen Fëanor and Fingolfin's last visit in the winter. Not that they need to strive over appearance either, of course, but hast thou never wanted to gild thy beauty, my lord?”

Vanimórë shrugged. “I am a warrior and sometime prince,” he said. “I wear what befits the occasion. And I have just finished a long journey, my lady.”

She hesitated.  
“Yes. We saw what happened in Umbar. Or what thou didst choose to show us. Thou art welcome here. It is not as she said.”

He flinched inside, hating pity. Yet he had no choice but to fling his mind open, wanting them all to know what Dana was.  
“I am Sauron's son.”  
  
“Coldagnir is a Balrog, one of those who disabled Fëanor and Fingon so that Gothmog might slay them, and he was in Gondolin, too.” Her dark eyes were clear, unblinking on his face. “And thou didst save Maglor's life when he was imprisoned in Barad-dûr, fought against the Dark Lord in the last battle on the slopes of Orodruin. My son saw thee. Thou didst bring the Silmaril of the Oceans back, have been through _Fos Almir_ permitting the dead rebirth. As for the women who came here from Dale and Esgaroth...how many would have aided them when even their own people turned their backs?”

“That was nothing, lady. I could not give them back the lives stolen from them.”

“But thou hast given them a chance of a new one.” She propped her chin on her fist. “Elgalad is right about thee. He says thou hast no real understanding of thine appearance.”

“No, lady, I do understand. How could I not? I have the face of an Elf and have lived most of my life among Mortals. I know the effect it can have, for good or ill.”

“But n-not the effect he has on other Elves, apparently.” Elgalad walked in through the open windows. “Fanari, shall w-we adorn him as befits a prince and a god?”

Vanimórë raised his brows. “Didst thou plan this, my dear?”

“Maybe.” Elgalad smiled, collusive, at Fanari, who gleamed back and said, “I shall be thy tirewoman. Do not worry. I know what I am doing. I used to ensure my son always presented himself as a prince.”

They chose a silk tunic in a shade of soft lavender shot through with silver like rain, the high neck and hem embroidered in silver, with an enameled belt that sat low on his hips. His breeches were dark, almost black, but with a midnight blue sheen, his boots the softest doeskin. With dexterous fingers, Fanari re-dressed his hair, drawing it up and back, securing it with a silver clasp, weaving the fall into braids threaded with violet ribbons. When it was done she slid a silver circlet onto his brow, starbursts inlaid with amethyst. Elgalad, eyes intent, gestured to the long pier-glass.

Vanimórë detested his face and form, seeing them as things others had wanted to possess and break, Melkor, Sauron, Dana. He did not look at himself, but rather the clothes, until Elgalad gently laid two hands each side of his head and raised it so that he could not help but see.

He supposed this was what he had dreamed of being once, perhaps still did: a Noldo prince. The tunic's colour accentuated the shade of his eyes, turned them as amethyst as the stones in the circlet. His skin was white but for the sweep of shadow under his cheekbones, his lips a sensuous scroll that was nevertheless as hard as a statue's kiss. It was almost a stranger's face until it slid into a peculiarly haunting familiarity, as if he had seen it on some-one else, long ago.  
  
“ _Well_!” Fanari folded her arms with a satisfied nod, cast a look at Elgalad who said, his face strange as he stared:. “Thou art so b-beautiful.”  
  
“There is a sufficiency of beautiful men in Imladris at the moment,” Vanimórë commented dryly.

“There are,” Fanari agreed. “But there are some who are... _brighter_. And we would honour thee.”  
  
“ _Honour_ me? Why?”

“Have I not given thee the reasons?” she asked.  
  
Vanimórë shook his head, waited while Elgalad changed for the feast. He too wore lavender, his silver hair braided, and looked both ethereal and delicious, Vanimórë thought.

“I do have a sense of occasion, my dear,” he said as they took the steps down toward the hall. “But I did not realize this was to be one.”

“Presided over b-by Fëanor?” Elgalad questioned. “How could it n-not be?”

“There is that. Though nothing I have heard of Fëanor leads me to think he considers his attire important.”  
  
“There is a time for it, and my d-dear Lord, thou couldst turn h-heads in sackcloth. But why shouldst thou?”

It seemed, from the murmur of voices coming from the hall, that they were tardy. The double doors were flung wide to the soft evening. Lamps of rose and amber-gold shone over a glitter of silks and gems, bright, rich colours.  
  
Those at the high table were the first to see Vanimórë and Elgalad enter. Elladan and Elrohir as the lords of Imladris took the center chairs, Fëanor and Fingolfin on their right and left. Gil-galad was there, and Tindómion. Bainalph had a place beside Tindómion. Lómion, Eärendil, Aredhel and Glorfindel too, were at the table. The latter favoured Vanimórë with a smile.  
  
And there was Maglor. Vanimórë had not expected him and, to judge by his expression, Maglor had definitely not expected Vanimórë. For an instant he went utterly still, colour striking high across his cheeks, silver eyes fixed, staring. His beauty was like a choke-hold, stopping the breath. He raised his chin, face closed and haughty as a marble tomb. That did not surprise Vanimórë, what did was that those in the hall, Maglor included, came to their feet.

“Welcome, Prince Vanimórë, Elgalad.” Fëanor blazed, a fact that had nothing to do with his clothes or jewels. “Come and join us.”

“I thank thee,” Vanimórë returned calmly, walking between the lower tables to step up onto the dais. Bainalph inclined his head with a lovely smile.  
  
His taking a seat seemed to be a silent signal for the meal to commence. Servers brought out platters of food, jugs of wine or mead. Vanimórë, picking idly at roast trout, looked down the table. It was a breathtaking tableau. Even with his desires, for the moment, quenched, still he could appreciate it. But the _tension_...! Beneath the surface of politesse it seethed between Fëanor and Fingolfin, Tindómion and Gil-galad, even Maglor and his father, crossing and recrossing in lines of fire until it formed a web with Fëanor at its center, a silent thunder of desire both realized and unresolved and Vanimórë, with the distance imposed by the lack of it, could tease it apart, see where those lines lead. It was powerful, _Hells_ , enough to make the world burn. He wondered if Elladan and Elrohir, sat betwixt its sources, felt it upon their skins like wild heat. As for himself, he stood apart from it, isolated, envious. Alone. Which was just what Dana had wanted.

He did not, though, feel uncomfertable. He had acted as Sauron's emissary too often, ruled Sud Sicanna too long to be discomfited by this gathering.

Elgalad was speaking quietly to Bainalph, and Vanimórë glanced over the room to find one who should, by right of birth, be seated at the high table, but was not. He could not see Edenel, who would be impossible to overlook, and guessed he had chosen not to expose himself to eyes that might see through him to the blood and bone of Finwë. Coldganir was absent too. He would speak to them both later, or after the meeting that would inevitably follow this feast.

There was little small-talk; they spoke of war, of arms, of defenses, supply lines, the winter skirmishes. To that, Vanimórë could add nothing, and so he listened. Glorfindel had kept him informed, and he had heard of Edenel and Coldagnir's successful execution of their plan in the Ice Bay of Forochel. It had been well thought of.

He felt like an outsider, unable to take his wrath into Carn Dûm, not knowing what was happening there, what Malantur was doing. Too much to hope that he was dead or descended so far into madness that he was incapable of command. Although he was not, in any real sense in command. Melkor pulled his strings from beyond the veil.  
  
_Vanimórë?_ The voice was Glorfindel's.

_Yes?_

_What wilt thou do?_  
  
Vanimórë sat back, took a small sip of wine that tasted of elderflowers, light, floral, dry.  
_I cannot enter Angmar, but it was Dana who told me this was not my war, and I have no intention of hearkening to her. It may not be for me to slay Malantur, but I can still fight._

 _Good,_ Glorfindel said simply. Then: _How is it with thee, truly?_

He shrugged a little. _I feel like an utter fool,_ he responded. _I was so blind for so long._

_Do not blame thyself—_

_I will stop blaming myself when I have dealt with her. She has gone into hiding._  
  
_She fears thee,_ Glorfindel said. _And she should._

 _Something happened to her when I was in Umbar. She was hurt._ Vanimórë smiled grim, private. _I could not see who or how; she covered herself in darkness and vanished._

_Yes, I sensed that too. And I could not trace her either, which is disturbing._

It was. Vanimórë could feel even the Valar, albeit distantly, but Dana had drawn a Shadow over herself that he could not pierce through. It troubled him. He had, he realized, no real idea of her powers.  
_Remain wary,_ he warned.

 _I do,_ Glorfndel assured him. _Always._

Vanimórë listened to the talk, wishing he had an army, knowing that it was his own fault he did not. The Mordorian's would follow him, he knew, but he would not ask them to. They had integrated with Imladris, and he could not always be here.

He was deep in thought when Maglor and Tindómion rose to play. Servants carried great harps into the hall and set them down. The company grew silent as the Fëanorions seated themselves on hassocks.

It was quite beyond beauty, that word was too simplistic. Their voices, intertwined in rich golden harmony, their fingers skilled on the harpstrings, wove a spell of courage and damnation. The _Noldolantë_. It was sung in sadness and bitter grief, but now with a challenge like a battle trump that set the heart aflame. _It is not over. That was not the last word._  
  
Vanimórë watched their faces, so alike, distant with the power of the music, and he saw the visions they wove, battles he had not seen, deaths he had only heard of, from Ungloliant's murder of the Two Trees to Gil-galad's fall in Mordor. And that, he _had_ witnessed. He drew himself out of the spell to look down the table at Gil-galad's profile, stern and beautiful, and closer, Fingolfin's as similar as two heads stamped on a coin. All the tragic glory of the Noldor was writ in the exquisite lines of their faces. Vanimórë closed his eyes, felt Elgalad's hand slide into his.

In the silence that came after, he heard weeping. Those on the dais were as still as effigies. It was not done to mourn one's own death, he supposed. No-one applauded, such an action would have been crass, but something must be said. He stirred and rose, drawing all eyes to him as he lifted his goblet.  
“The Noldor,” he said simply, and drank.  
  
His words were echoed as the hall rose, wine-cups flashing in the light.

The feast was over, people circulating now, speaking quietly together. Fëanor jerked his head and walked through the curtained door behind the dais. Here was a spacious and comfortable ante-room scattered with chairs, settles, windows open to the mild evening.  
  
Fëanor turned to Vanimórë.  
“I have not yet thanked thee for saving my son's life.” He extended his hand. “I am in thy debt.”

Vanimórë gripped his arm in a warrior's clasp. A strange shock of power and something he could only describe as recognition spiked through his flesh. It was not lust; he wished it had been, but it was _something._

“There is no debt,” he said easily, looking into eyes that glittered with light like a diamond, like the Silmaril he had brought from the deeps of the Sea. “I am glad I was able to release him. The time was propitious. Sauron was gone. Otherwise I could have done naught. Perhaps it was more than chance.”  
  
“Mayhap. Whether or no, I must disagree. There is still a debt.” And Fëanor drew him forward and kissed him on the mouth. Beneath the apathy, as behind a wall, Vanimórë could feel the sheer sexual power of that kiss. Perhaps it was as well he could not respond to it, and he did not, lips still beneath that lush mouth. Fëanor looked deeply, searchingly into his eyes.  
“I would rip that bitch's heart out myself,” he said in a hot, sudden lash of anger.

“It will pass,” Vanimórë smiled a little.

“I do not think I have thanked thee either,” Maglor interposed. He had stepped to his father's shoulder.

“And do I get another kiss for it?” Vanimórë teased and saw the pink deepen along the suave curve of Maglor's cheeks. _I am perfectly harmless now,_ he added.  
  
Maglor's eyes turned incandescent, the colour of the mercury that had slid in glass phials in Sauron's secret chambers, but with a light behind them no metal or jewel could rival. They had been thus in Barad-dûr when they were together. The memory might have been a tale heard from a stranger, long ago. The feeling of loss was fearful. He said, matter-of-factly to Fëanor, “Thy son was the most beautiful creature I had ever beheld, and a Fëanorion. I would have done anything in my power to aid him. To me, the Noldor were heroes.”

“Well, thou art half Noldo thyself,” Fëanor said. “Is it not time to reclaim that part of thine heritage?”

Vanimórë felt his face freeze.  
“Thou knowest what I am, how I was born.” He painstakingly folded his words into perfect flatness. “No Noldo would claim me.” Certainly not his mother.  
  
“Thou art not responsible for thy begetting,” Maglor said, and Vanimórë looked at him, startled. “No more than my son is for his.”

And Fanari loved Tindómion. She had been raped too. There were no degrees of rape, Vanimórë knew, but there were degrees of horror. Móriel had been kept alive in madness after seeing her husband devoured, the orcs carving chunks from his still-living flesh. Vanimórë slammed down on that vision.  
“The time when I could have been counted among the Noldor is long gone,” he said. “if it ever existed.” He remembered his childish dreams, fantasies spun out to comfort both he and his sister, to give them hope that one day the Noldor would ride into Tol-in-Gaurhoth and take them away. How foolish, how pathetic a dream. It was before he had learned whom his father was, but still he cringed at the childish stupidity.  
  
“No,” Fingolfin disagreed, drawing Vanimórë's eyes to him. “Thou art one of us.” He looked like sapphire and silver under the sweep of silken black hair. The Noldor's greatest hero, his beauty almost unreal. “I did not know Móriel, but I knew Hendunár, her husband. He was one of my warriors until I released him to wed her.” Star-blue eyes traced Vanimórë's face. “Thou hast the look of him.”

Vanimórë gazed at Fingolfin, into a mind that had opened itself to him, saw the man who might, in another life, have been his father. A slice out of Fingolfin's memories. Hendunár was smiling, and there _was_ a resemblance, in the bones of his face, the sweep of his brows, the abundant darkness of his hair. Of course. Sauron had changed his appearance so that Móriel, poor women, believed she was being raped by her own husband. She could not have known reality from nightmare at the end.

Vanimórë had witnessed atrocities all his life but this one was personal. Like his sister's death, it hurt to think on. A sword pushed up into his heart, his throat, lodged there.

“I was born of the horror inflicted on a brutalized woman,” he said tight-lipped. “Even less would her husband acknowledge me. Understand this: I know she is yet unhealed. I would not add to her torment — or his — by stepping into their lives, a living reminder of what they suffered.”

“I do understand that,” Fingolfin told him. The others, save Fëanor and Maglor had moved away to give them an illusion of privacy, even Elgalad. “And I honour thee for thy decision, thou thou art blameless. It is one of the reasons thou art one of us, not only Sauron's son but Móriel's, not only Maia, but Noldo also.”

“And I will always aid thee in whatever way I can,” Vanimórë said. “But I am not wholly one of thee, and I could never dwell among thee. I would not _fit_. There is enough of my father in me to desire rule, power, order, and I believe thou hast enough Noldor of that ilk.” He gave a brief, wry smile.  
  
“And so thou wilt go into the south and build an empire?” Fëanore asked, watching him intently.

“When the time is right,” Vanimórë agreed. “After Malantur and Carn Dûm fall. This may not be my war, but I would not miss it, not even for an Empire.”

Fëanor nodded. “Wilt thou come,” he said. “to Nost-na-Lothion?”

Fingolfin shot him a glance that blazed with passion and...what? Triumph? Ah, these two, Vanimórë thought, so perfectly matched, enough desire thrumming between them to shatter the sun and an old, old game of pretense played out for others and now, he thought, for themselves.

“I thank thee,” he replied. “But it would be wasted on me.” He glanced at Maglor's face, colour still painting his cheeks.

“Perhaps not. We would help thee if we could.” Fëanor leaned closer to him, heat beating through his clothes, from the grainless white skin.

“All of thee?” Vanimórë wondered.

“He would be a fool who did not want thee.”

Vanimórë laughed deep in his throat. “I thank thee, but my desires will return in time. As it is, they are not distracting me.”

“Thou doth view desire as a _distraction_?” Fëanor demanded, his mouth curling into a smile. “Interesting.”

“It can be. To me, and especially now.” Vanimórë was not in the least embarrassed talking about such a subject. Self-consciousness did not last long in Angband. He had left it behind in the bloody ashes of his youth. Elgalad's silver hair glimmered as he turned his head, smiling.

Thick lashes veiled Fëanor's eyes as he followed Vanimórë's look.  
“Perhaps thy fears are well-founded,” he said not ungently. “But perhaps thou shouldst also have more faith in thyself.”

“More than any-one,” Vanimórë said. “wouldn't thou not understand wanting _everything_?”

Fëanor put up a hand. “Yes,” he acknowledged. “But even I have a measure of self-control — no, really! — and thou, I am sure, have more.” He laid his hands on Vanimórë's shoulders, drew them down his arms. “Dana took something away from thee. I would help thee regain it.”

Vanimórë's skin prickled in light, stinging strokes. But Fëanor's eyes were a predator's, and Vanimórë had sworn he would lie down for no-one. There was no shame in it, he knew, only Ages of being used and determined not to be. Never again. He smiled, a polite movement of his lips, no more. “Again, I thank thee for thine invitation and thine interest in me, but I must refuse.”

Fëanor leaned in, whispered into his ear, “Thou art stubborn. I can make thee feel. Dana's curse will be ash in the wind. I promise thee that.”  
  
Vanimórë turned his head to meet those unhuman eyes. He felt choked, breathless, but he said, “Knowest thou what it is like to be used when there is no desire?”

A flash, deep within the glitter.  
  
“No,” Vanimórë murmured. “Of course not. I know how this goes, Fëanor, how it feels. My desires will return. I will wait.”

Elegant as a panther, Fëanor flung himself into of the chairs. “Well,” he said, still gazing at Vanimórë. “Then let us talk.”

Maglor's eyes met Vanimórë's for a heartbeat, inscrutable, before taking a seat beside his father. Vanimórë settled himself as far away as possible out of compunction. He could not flirt, and Maglor was haunted enough by his father without Vanimórë adding to his discomfort.  
“I shall go to Angmar's borders,” he said. “I do not return to Esgaroth until the autumn.”

“Thou art truly employed as a merchant's guard?” Tindómion questioned.  
  
“Truly.” Vanimórë smiled at him. “It is hardly difficult, and it gives me some time to become accustomed both to power — and the limits I must impose on it — and freedom with few responsibilities.”  
  
“It is hard to imagine thee as any-one's servant,” Fëanor remarked.  
  
“That is exactly what I have been until now.” He draped an arm over the back of the chair. “Save when I ruled Sud Sicanna. Even then I knew Sauron would return. But I did develop a...knack for it.”

“Wilt thou return to Sud Sicanna?” Glorfindel asked.

“No.” Vanimórë shook his head. “It would be the logical choice, but no.” He did not want to admit, even to himself, that he had grown to hate the city where Dana had raped him and begun to spin her skein of lies. “I will begin afresh somewhere.”

“Just like that?” Glorfindel half-smiled.

“Well, I _am_ a god.” Vanimórë threw him a wink. There was a ripple of laughter. “And I have plenty of time.”

OooOooO

It was deep into the night when Vanimórë rose to go. Elgalad had left shortly before with Bainalph. Maglor and Gil-galad were speaking to Fingolfin. Vanimórë excused himself and went to the door, to be halted by a hand on his arm.  
“Walk with me awhile,” Fëanor said.

“Of course,” Vanimórë replied.

The night was quiet, but for the sound of falling water, cool, windless. Few lights showed in the valley.  
  
“My son does not like being beholden to any-one,” Fëanor said after they had walked in silence for a time. He leaned on a balcony. Dim gardens lay below, exhaling a sweet, cool fragrance.

“He is not. I did what I wanted to do.”

“He is uneasy in thy company; he does feel beholden. None of us enjoy the burden of debts unpaid.”  
  
“Didst thou see what he suffered?” Vanimórë asked, and Fëanor flashed, “I saw everything that would give me pain, that would torment and destroy me. Except it did not. Yes, I saw.” His hands gripped the stone baluster. “But thou didst heal him and let him go.”  
  
He did not know, Vanimórë thought, and it was for Maglor to tell him.  
  
“He will not speak of it,” Fëanor continued. “Not to his brothers, not to me.”

Vanimórë let a moment pass. “It is not easy. Does Maedhros speak of his time in Angband? Or Celebrimbor of Sauron's torture?”

“No,” Fëanor admitted. “But Maedhros did, eventually, talk to Fingon and his brothers. Celebrimbor has come back to Curufin and yes, he has told his father. Only Maglor remains silent. I want thee to tell me how he was. I did not see it.”

Vanimórë stared at the horned moon drifting west through shoals of cloud.  
“He did not speak to me,” he said carefully. “He would not beg Sauron, refused to say a word. After...he thought me an enemy, no doubt, as well he might. He said nothing.”  
  
Fëanor's eyes, jewels in the dark were intent on his face; he felt them like a brand of light.

“How long did it take him to...recover?”

“He still is not. Are any of thee? Physically, not long. He is very strong. The damage to his soul— ”  
  
“— is not healed. I know. We will never heal. And neither, I think, will thee.” Fëanor propped one hip against the baluster. “But thou didst stay in his mind. He fought thee, before thou didst claim the Silmaril from the deeps of the sea. He still has not told me why.”

Ah.  
  
“Thou shouldst ask him that,” Vanimórë said quietly. “Perhaps his mind fixed upon me as the only human touch he had received in a long time but also a servant of Sauron who tended him. He had been out of his mind, more than half mad. I cannot answer thee.” _I will not._ Not from fear, but because it was Maglor's business and no-one else's, not even his father's, if he chose it not to be. But he gave Fëanor something nonetheless, seeing the anguished love behind his eyes.  
“And perhaps it was fated. I would never have harmed Elgalad knowingly, and I had to be beyond myself enough to seek the Silmaril.”

“Hmmm.” Fëanor stared at him. “Like pieces upon a game board, are we? I like that not at all, and cannot see an overview of this game. Wouldst thou have killed him?” he asked suddenly, savagely.

“No.” He had never considered it. Perhaps they would have fought one another to a standstill, or he could have disarmed Maglor. It was what he had hoped for.

There was a long silence before Fëanor's fingers came up to touch Vanimórë's face.  
“I believe thee.” His scrutiny was intent, searching. Then, almost a whisper: “She has stolen thy passion. I can see the space where it burned, dark and empty as an unlit hearth.”  
  
“I am not passionate,” Vanimórë replied levelly. “I merely hate extraordinarily well. Desire is another thing entirely and I desire few.”

Fëanor laughed at him, a sound in itself wrought out of fire and seduction.  
“Whom art thou trying to lie to, Vanimórë? Thyself, or me? No-one has ever fooled me. I can _see._ ”

“Didst thou see through Dana?”

Fëanor's mouth tipped up. “I did not look, I admit. Other things were more important.”  
  
“More important than a goddess?”  
  
“I was never impressed by the Powers, and the belief that Arda's soul, if thou wilt, is female is an ancient one, out of Cuiviénen. It did not surprise me; neither did she. What did interest me was thine own part in it, of which thou didst say little. Glorfindel was the one to tell us what he knew, which was only the bare bones.”

Vanimórë reached for calm. “There was a reason for my silence as thou now knowest. Like thou, I did not see through her. And now she has gone into hiding, and neither myself nor Glorfindel can find her.”

“Yes...” Fëanor drew out the word. “That is intriguing in itself.” He seemed to brush away whatever thought occupied him. “But let us speak of thee. In my opinion, thou art more dangerous with thy desires quenched.”

“Why wouldst thou think that?”

“There is a coldness to thee,” Fëanor told him. “Thou art charming, easy in company, perfectly poised, but... _cold_. Was Sauron cold?”

A rush of anger flared, a sensation of heat exploding across his forehead. Yes, Sauron had been cold, but Vanimórë had never known if that was a mask, something he had learned through Ages of service. All his life he had tried to understand Sauron, and never succeeded.  
“I am not Sauron,” he enunciated.

“Not as thy true self, I am sure.”

“Art thou trying to make me annoyed?” Vanimórë questioned.

“Yes,” Fëanor threw back. “To make thee _see_. Thou shouldst be fighting what that creature did to thee, not allowing matters to take their course. Her intentions are as dangerous as Morgoth's. Do not concede anything to her.”  
  
“And I tell thee that she did me a favour. I _will_ kill Elgalad in the end. I will take everything.”

“Thou wilt not take everything from me,” Fëanor said with sublime confidence. “Nor from any of my blood. Like thou, we have been through the fire.”

Vanimórë copied his relaxed pose. Distantly, he heard the snap of horses hooves. A patrol returning to the valley, no doubt.  
“So thou wilt fuck me until I feel more like myself?” He leaned forward until their lips almost touched. “I do not lie down. For any-one. Not now. And never again.”

He could not read the expression in Fëanor's eyes, though he could have read his mind. Or could he? Fëanor was remarkable, a force fire, of power. Howbeit, Vanimórë did not trespass.  
“Well,” he challenged. “Wouldst thou?”  
  
“Not for just any-one, certainly.” Those eyes became opaque, but that in itself told Vanimórë everything. He would have wagered his soul that Fëanor would never take the submissive role, but gods! He had. And then Vanimórë thought of the sun-fire tension between Fëanor and Fingolfin, Fingolfin's gemlike beauty. If Fëanor let any-one take him, it would be his half-brother.

“Defy her,” Fëanor hissed. “Be one of us.”

“I am not _one of thee!_ ” He had long ago given up deceiving himself. He was not his father, but he was Sauron's son, and that blood could not be rinsed away.

“Thou art perilous,” Fëanor said. “And I know what it is like to have hate consume one. My hate destroyed me, but worse than that it destroyed my sons and those I loved.” Pain poured from his body, his mind but his eyes were unwavering, unblinking. “I had no plan save vengeance. But hate tempered and fashioned into a weapon, _that_ is useful.”

“I have tempered my hate, believe me. Over Ages. But it does not consume me. Thou wilt carry war to Valinor one day, Fëanor, and so though shouldst, but no matter how weakened the Valar are, they cannot be entirely destroyed.”

“When I have finished with them, they will wish they could be,” Fëanor promised. “Well? Wilt thou not say, as others have, that I am no god, and do not have power enough?”

“No, I will not say that,” Vanimórë said slowly. “Though I doubt not that whomever said that only feared for thee. But there is that about thee which is more than godlike, and thou wilt need it. The Valar are nothing, or not now, but Melkor...? He will come for thee, Fëanor and in all his might.”

Fëanor's smile was pitiless. “For thee, too,” he said. “ He will come for us all with destruction, hate, vengeance, and we will meet him, not torn apart by lies and suspicion, madness and grief, but together, as it should have been. I take full responsibility for the fact that we were fragmented. But we shall not be, not this time.”

“Perhaps thou shouldst not blame thyself,” Vanimórë said. “Not for all of it. Who knows what the Valar might have done to thy mind, and the others minds, when thou wert mad with grief and rage?”

“I have though about that,” Fëanor owned. “Perhaps it is so, but I should have known.” He straightened, slammed a hand on the baluster.

“We can all castigate ourselves for the past, but what should concern us now is the future. I do not know how to slay a god and ensure they stay dead, dost thou?”

Fëanor's mouth lifted in a delectable smile, half-rueful, half-challenging.  
“If he cannot be destroyed then we must ensure his spirit never returns again,” he said reasonably. “The Everlasting Dark _is_ a punishment.”

Vanimórë saw past that smile, but he said merely, “I believe thee.”

“And dost thou also believe that Eärendil guarded the doorway to and from the Void?”

“I think it is much more complicated than that,” Vanimórë said. “Though it makes a good story, but perhaps some kind of sacrifice _is_ required, if only because it would be so damned _poetic_. If so, I do not think that the Valar would have the power to seal the Everlasting Dark away from the world that is, and even if Eärendil was warding the gateway to the Void, I would not have left him to his fate. Wouldst thou?”

“Of course not.” Fëanor made a gesture with one hand. He tilted his head. “The Void. Where matter is not. Canst thou travel there?”

“I could, if I shed my form, but I was not born Vala, after all, accustomed to formlessness.”

“So, thou hast not tried. Yet.”

“Not yet,” Vanimórë replied. “I would prefer to battle in my own flesh, when it comes to it.”  
  
“And why wouldst thou not? It is very beautiful flesh.” Fëanor's voice came dark and smoky. He smelled of cedarwood and what Vanimórë could only think of as the dust of stars, though dust implied an ending, and Fëanor was as imminent as a mountain emerging from the mists, forcing a traveller to stand in awe and fear.  
  
If Vanimórë were himself they would be grappling in furious ardour, neither wishing to concede. He had wondered, once, why the Noldor had followed Fëanor to their doom and then he had seen Maglor, in whose mind Fëanor burned like a conflagration, and he knew. _If I had been there, I would have followed him, too._ And probably, he would have guessed the cost, and considered it worthwhile.

The moon, drifting free of the patched clouds, planed Fëanor's face into light and shadow, faultless and utterly compelling, glossed his hair with silver. But his eyes needed no borrowed radiance; they cast the moon into pallid shame.

“Dost thou think I am flattering thee?” he murmured. “I never flatter. Not even gods.” He lifted his hands, cupped Vanimórë's cheeks. “Glorfindel said that thou dost not see thyself as others do, and that is true, is it not? I do not wonder that Dana sought thee for her bed again and again, that she sought, or still seeks, to make thee her consort.”

“Dana,” Vanimórë uttered hollowly. “How I have been blessed, no? And Sauron, Melkor...”

“Terrible, yes, but I understand them, too. And then there is Elgalad, who loves thee,”  
  
“He loves an idea of me which is not true.”

“But it is true.” Fëanor's thumbs skimmed across his cheekbones, waking yearning, a longing to be what he had been. Dangerous thoughts for a superlatively dangerous man. “Thou didst raise him and love him. He is the guardian of thine innocence is he not? Thou seest in him what thou wert, once.”

Too close, and Fëanor was too clever. Vanimórë jerked his head away but did not move. He would not back down. Fëanor smiled.  
“I want to bring thee back. I want to fill the hollow Dana left in thee, not only because I want thee, but because it is _wrong_.”  
  
“I have known men, women too, who feel no sexual desire,” Vanimórë told him. “There is naught wrong with a lack of lust.”

“If one is born like that, no, but thou wert not, and so thou art not thy true self now.”

Long, light footsteps sounded on stone. Fingolfin came into view, Maglor beside him.  
“Excuse the interruption,” he said with an enameled formality that hid so much. “But thou wilt want to see this, Prince Vanimórë. There are Men just arrived who say they are searching for thee.”

“For me?” Vanimórë frowned. “Men from Carn Dûm?”

“No, and Elrohir says they are not exactly Men.” Maglor folded his arms as if defending and distancing himself. His eyes had flashed from his father to Vanimórë. What had he expected to see? “They call themselves the _Khadakhir._ ”

  


OooOooO

  



	71. ~ The Past Has No Ending ~

  
  
  


**~ The Past Has No Ending ~**

 

  
~ They were waiting for him in the inner ward, standing straight and tall in their black armour, these Men, whom had been changed (just as Malantur had) but whom had ridden the temptations of power and greed rather than be ridden by them.  
Their faces, frozen forever into youth turned to look at him. And they lit like fire.  
  
“Sire.” Tanout, once of Sud Sicanna, took a step forward, then stopped. The guards about them had hands on sword or bowstring.

Vanimórë inclined his head. Then he said: “Why?”

The bald question did not take the shine from their eyes.

“We felt him leave the world, my lord,” Celírel said. “But we knew _you_ did not die. We decided to find you.” He spoke in Westron.

“Thou couldst go anywhere now,” Vanimórë said, puzzled. “Be anything. Thou art free men.”

“We are _your_ men, my lord,” Kan-dai said firmly, dark eyes glinting. “as we always wished to be and could not while the Great One lived. Is not freedom the choice to live our lives as _we_ desire?”

“We are the _Khadakhir_ ” Enet said, and they moved then, smooth as dancers, and went down on one knee.

“Dost thou knowest what I am, now?” Vanimórë stepped forward.

“We know.” Imir spoke, eyes to the ground. “And you are still the same prince we wanted to serve in our youth. Whom we are sworn to serve now. We took an oath. All of us.”

Vanimórë stared, then looked up to meet Elrohir's eyes.  
“They served Sauron,” he said. “In faraway places. Yet I vouch for them.”

Elrohir nodded, gave the signal and the guards stepped down.

“Rise,” Vanimórë said, and smiled.

They gathered about him, smiling too, faces eager, glowing.  
  
“You would not answer us, Sire,” Tanout said. “And we could not tell you about _her._ ”

“Her?” Vanimórë questioned.

“Dana.”

 

Dawn waited beyond the mountains when the men were bathed and fed and sitting in the guest hall. Elladan and Elrohir were there, as were Fëanor, Fingolfin and Glorfindel. The men's eyes flicked to them often, and then back to Vanimórë, but they had lived a long time and though awed, were not abashed.

“That is interesting,” Glorfindel said, hearing for the first time of their meeting with Dana. “So her sorcery had no effect on thee, but thou,” he looked at Imir, “could wound her with thy blade. This seems to indicate Sauron's power was greater than hers.”

“Perhaps that is why she never confronted him,” Vanimórë murmured. “Or perhaps she considered it unimportant, was not ready. Who knows? In truth I could never calculate the extent of her powers. She hid them too well.”

“Well, she is certainly hidden now,” Fëanor remarked, outshining the lamplight. “in impenetrable darkness.”

“It reminds me of the blackness that swallowed Valinor,” Glorfindel commented. “That creature who devoured the Trees.”

Fingolfin's head turned, stern and beautiful, brows arched.  
“Ungweliantë,” he said in Quenya. “So the tales named it. We never knew what it was.”

“Unlight,” Vanimórë murmured. “That which is not. Sauron told me, long after. Shelob, the great spider who laired on the borders of Mordor was her offspring. It — _she_ — wanted the Silmarils, and might have got them, too, had Sauron not heard Melkor's cry and sent Balrogs from Angband to drive her away with fire.”

“Unlight,” Glorfindel repeated. “Even the Valar could not see through it.”

“Dana is old, far older than we, and we know very little about her. We must simply watch and ward.” Vanimórë turned back to the _Khadakhir_. “Thou hast walked straight into a war, so thou must know whom and what we fight.”  
  
They leaned forward, unafraid, intent and when he named the Mouth of Sauron, saw the disgust surface. And the gladness.  
  
“Good,” Kan-dai, whom had once been raped and used by Malantur. “Very good.”

“Oh, he will die. Thou canst wager on it. But he is the least of what we will face.”

He told them and they listened, attentive as students, until the end.

“A battle indeed,” D'nez said, flashing a smile at Imir, who grinned back.  
  
“Not one thou hast ever fought in before,” Vanimórë warned. “And there is another thing: Celírel, Enet, thou wilt not need this because I gave thee my blood, but the rest of thee were given Sauron's. Whom is no longer here.”

“The Mouth is degrading?” Tanout asked acutely. “In truth, my lord, we had wondered.”

“It is a slow process, though his madness probably hastens it, but yes. I will give thee mine. And tomorrow,” he added. “I will introduce thee to the others from Mordor, and they can tell thee more of their time serving in Carn Dûm, but now it is late, and thou hast journeyed far.”

“It was worth it, my lord,” Celírel said with a smile. “It has been far too long.”

  
Vanimórë's chamber was empty. He disrobed, carefully laying aside the beautiful clothes and gems, loosing his hair. He sat on the edge of the bed in darkness.

They should not have come, but how could he reject them? They were right; they had freedom now. He could not turn away their incomprehensible loyalty, though he wished they had found something else, _some-one_ else. Sauron had sent them all far away from him (he was not allowed comfort) but if his father had not, he would have done so (because of his selfish need to have some-one to call his own, or even just a friend).

They could have done anything. They still could, but he admitted they would be an advantage in this war. He had trained them all himself.

He lay back, letting the night take him, thought of Fëanor's offer, Maglor's complex regard. It was as well he could not feel desire, he thought with a flicker of amusement. The Finwëions were too inflammatory, sinful temptation. Then he thought of his mother, her husband, whom Fingolfin said he favoured, and his inner smile went to where all dying things go: a cold, dank grave. It hurt in a way he could not describe or comprehend to know that he looked like the man whom could have been his father, that Sauron had taken his shape even as the orcs devoured him still living.

A shudder swept him and he stood up, reached for his clothes, drew his hair up into a high tail. Neither rest nor sleep would come, all he would do was seethe in grief and impotence not of the body, but the mind. And there was a deeper pain in that, wishing, _wishing_ he could go back through time and re-weave every burned, broken, thread of Time's tapestry, heal the wounds, make the past anew. He could not. Again and again, he came up against the constraints that trammeled even gods. He was as bound as he had been under Sauron. The cage was bigger now, but still there were bars.  
  
_Hendunár.,_ His name was, a mere footnote in the annals of Sauron's refined cruelty, but he was a real person, whom had lived and loved. Vanimórë had seen it when Fingolfin showed him. It had taken all his self-control not to show the shock he felt at seeing a face so like his own. His mind had skidded on black ice, unfurling the dreadful death before his eyes while his mother, (no, Móriel, the woman who bore him, not _mother_ which meant, or should mean, care and love and gentle hands, not terror and torment and a lonely death) screamed herself into insanity.

 _Vanimórë!_ It was Glorfindel, warm, deeply concerned. _Let me in._

Vanimórë smoothed the frown from his brows. _It is nothing._ He crossed a lawn, ascended white steps, and almost ran into the one he had subconsciously wanted to find. Fingolfin put out his hands to steady Vanimórë's near collision. His hands were a warrior's, and yet there was in them the gentleness of great strength.

“Perhaps we should never have spoken of them,” he said quietly, as if continuing a conversation. “But we _do_ consider thee to be one of us, Vanimórë. It is so strange to see so much of him in thee. So many threads connect thee to us.”  
  
“Unfortunately, he is not within me,” Vanimórë tempered his voice to calm.

“Perhaps he is, in a way.” A fleeting expression crossed Fingolfin's face. “Thou has t all his courage. He would have loved a son. And he would be proud of thee.”

Vanimórë laughed, the sound bitter in his own ears, tasting of gall. “Would he indeed?”

“Yes.” Fingolfin sounded so certain, a king pronouncing a judgment that cannot be questioned. “I knew him.”

“Didst thou see him, after?”

“Yes. I saw him. He would not leave her side. He said he had failed her.” Heavy silk rustled as Fingolfin made a sudden movement. “I should never have let him go. I _felt_ that there was something wrong, something terrible in it.”

“If not him, then another,” Vanimórë told him. “If not her, then it would have been another. Sauron was determined to breed a son, something that did not look like a monster, at least.”  
  
Fingolfin's face was white and hard, a blaze beneath it. “Thou art no monster.”

A shrug. “Why didst thou accede to his request if thou hadst foresight?”

“I was his lord, not his gaoler.”

“The lord whom he loved. I saw it.”

“And there it is,” Fingolfin returned wryly. “I thought it was just sex, some comfort. It was not the same then. We were truly proscribed in our lives, our thinking. Now, I would think nothing of having several lovers, but then, I felt I could not give him what he wanted, what thy...Móriel could. And even if I had been able to, what future was there in furtive, shameful secrecy?”  
  
“Shame?”

“There was always shame, even with— ” He stopped. “We were _taught_ to feel it. It was ingrained in our blood, enshrined within laws nailed into our minds. But I am sure thou knowest. Thou didst tell Maglor thou wouldst not feel shame in desiring thy father.”

“There was no place in my life for shame of that kind,” Vanimórë told him. “And so, he, Hendunár, left thee for a woman he did not really want, to die a terrible death which she was forced to watch. Poor creature. Did anyone love her, I wonder?”

“Thou couldst, I think.”

“ _What_?” It took the breath from him. He regathered it with difficulty. It burnt into his lungs. “Didst thou not hear me when I said that I would never compound the pain of their memories?”  
  
“I heard thee, and _thou_ didst not torment them. Yes, thou wert born of rape, but _thou_ art innocent.”

“For thousands of years I served the one who raped her. I never even tried to avenge her. Innocent? I think not!” Vanimórë felt too tight for his flesh, as if it would split and crack and all his pain, the anger would burst forth, unhuman, formless, nothing but emotion that could not be contained. He even stepped back, lest Fingolfin be harmed by it as he wrestled with the long scream that rang from his birth to this moment, and could never be voiced lest it drive him into madness. _Dark pits deep under Angband or Barad-dûr, where a thing that had once been a man sat in his own waste, half-bald, rags rotting off his body, scrabbling to eat the spiders that crawled on the damp walls. He did not know what he had been or what he was, and that was the only mercy._

He had forgotten for a moment, who Fingolfin was, what he was, that his life had been shaped by fire, by passion. His hands caught Vanimórë's shoulders holding him, arresting the rush toward destruction. He could see his reflection in the black centers of those blue-white eyes, the dark corona around him, violet tinged with red. Fëanor was right: without desire, Vanimórë was too perilous; there was nothing to channel his energies into save hate and grief.

“Innocent,” Fingolfin repeated sternly. “Listen to me: If Móriel has not healed after Ages in the care of Lórien with her husband beside her, and her mother, too, for she is, perhaps that is not what she needs. Healing must begin somewhere else for her. And for him, also.”

“She can never heal,” Vanimórë said like rust and ashes.

“No-one is ever truly healed, but there can be something new. There was for us, and we never expected it, never hoped for it.”

Vanimórë quartered Fingolfin's face with his eyes, understanding then how he was the perfect balance for Fëanor. It was not his words alone but the authority within him, the fire that he had bent to his will (except sometimes).

“I cannot see her,” he said after a long pause. “But I will think on what thou hast said.” He stepped back, turned. Fingolfin ran one hand down his arm to catch his wrist.  
“Fëanor spoke for us all, I think, when he said only a fool would not want thee. The offer he made thee is still open. Think on that, too.”

OooOooO

“That was too close,” Coldagnir murmured from the vantage point high above the garden.  
  
Elgalad did not turn his head, but his fingers softened on the stone balustrade.  
“Yes.”

“Thou didst know it would be, brother.”

“It was bound to be close. Fëanor is right of course, Vanimórë _is_ dangerous, and the more so without his desires. But I would not have helped him, then.” He turned. “And do not call me, 'brother'. It is too easy a habit to fall into.”

“Of course it is,” Coldagnir agreed. “I apologise.”

“And remember whom _thou_ art. What thou must do.” But Elgalad smiled.

“I do not fear Gothmog now.” Yet doubt leered at him from the corners of his mind. He had dreaded Gothmog too long for the habit to be easily overthrown. But it was only a habit, he knew, not the truth. He fixed his eyes upon Elgalad's face. “But I did not remember, did I? Not for a long time, not until thou didst come back to Utumno for me and implanted a memory in my mind. And I did not remember that until the night— ”

Elgalad laid one finger over Coldagnir's lips, said softly, “I do not leave my kin in Melkor's hands but understand this: my mission has been and always will be Vanimórë. All the alternatives have been played out. Those universes have ended. There is only this one.”

“And that I cannot understand,” Coldagnir said. “He is not evil, not Melkor.”

“But in some ways, he is quite like his father, is he not? That coldness is pure Mairon. What balances it is passion, from his Noldor blood. But now he is without balance. He thinks it unimportant because he has experienced it before.” The light in Elgalad's eyes burned preternatural, furious. “But then, he was not a god. Now he is. Eru took a grave risk giving such power to a man so damaged.”

“But he is learning to control it.”

“Yes,” Elgalad said. “and his control is almost frightening, but when his emotions touch on something so very personal to him, his mother, his sister, wounds he avoids...thou canst see how near he came to destruction.”

“Yes,” Coldagnir whispered. “yet thou doth trust him.” He stared at Elgalad, the true Elgalad, exactly like the beautiful Elf he had first seen near Esgaroth and utterly different. “What is he supposed to become?”

“It is only a possibility, even now.” There was no give in Elgalad's face, prince of the gods, favored of the One.

“Very well,” Coldagnir said reluctantly, then, “But thou dost love him?”

Elgalad frowned. “Why wouldst thou ask me that? From the moment I saw him, before he was conceived, when he was but a vision of what would be, I have loved him. It is a great irony to me that he thinks himself unlovable when he is anything but.”

“And thou hast...interfered before and made it worse?”

“Yes. And I have... _interfered_ ,” and the word came with a wry twist. “this time. I hope not too much. Yes, I made it worse. Far worse.”

“How can it be _worse_ for him?” Coldagnir hissed, angry. “His childhood, his life— I raped him, and I was not the only one. _Eru_! he was Melkor's toy, and Sauron's. I saw what was done to him. It should have destroyed him. _I_ was willing to be hidden, to go as a spy into Utumno. Yes, I forgot who I was, where I came from, but whatever happened to me, _I_ made the choice. Vanimórë never had one. It would have saved him so much agony if he had died as a child.”

Elgalad was silent a moment. He glanced back down to the lower gardens, empty now.  
“I did that once.” His voice came soft as dew-fall as winter turns it to ice. “I could not bear it. I went back and stopped his mother's heart in Tol-in-Gaurhoth, before she could bear her children.”  
  
“What happened?” The words were a mere breath.

“Sauron simply experimented again and again. Each one born was a monster. In all ways. Only Vanimórë was not. And I have killed him, and he me thousands of times. And I have failed him every single time.”

“But who _is_ he? Why him? Why not Fëanor? Or one of us?”

“Fëanor is something else entirely, as thou knowest. He would be...antithetical to this task, not because he would not do it, but by reason of what he is. Why Vanimórë? Only Eru knows that, and he has not told me. Only that...” The late stars watched them like a thousand eyes, and Elgalad said with love, with terrible pain. “he is a sacrifice.”

OooOooO

Hendunár rose from his accustomed place beside his sleeping wife as Irmo's silent presence intruded. Like most of the Noldor, he trusted few of the Valar, but this one, he had reason to.

“There is one here who would speak with thee,” Irmo told him quietly.  
  
Hendunár frowned. Since Fingolfin, before he sailed back to the Outer Lands, (And ah! How he had wanted to go too!) no-one had come here save Irmo. But he could not leave Móriel, though she never spoke, even when awake. He glanced at Ballineth, her mother, a woman once bold and outspoken who seemed cramped now, crushed by Móriel's torment. Her face had set into hard lines, stone and old bitterness. She would not leave Valinor, whom had once written of Endorë so passionately, both because of her daughter and because she would not accept Fëanor as her king.

The Valar had told her, (naturally) of his involvement with Fingolfin, and she had tried to drive Hendunár away when he came. Her daughter, she said, had deserved to be loved wholly, not with the scraps left over from another man's feast-table. He agreed, but both guilt and honour compelled him to remain.

He walked at Irmo's side through the sweeping clouds of cedar, the scent of _fumellar_ , the song of nightingales.  
“Who is it?” he asked at length, unable to imagine, and not greatly caring. Lórien brought peace to those who dwelt there, but it was an insidious tranquility that dulled the mind like too-strong wine. One became passive, resigned. To Hendunár, it was death-within-life.

“His name is — ”

They reached the edge of the gardens, and Valinor unrolled itself to his eyes, pallid under the sun, a place of ennui. Once it had been beautiful, yet confining, shaping the Eldar to the Valar's whims. Middle-earth, even with the Doom like a death-shroud hanging over them, had been far more lovely.

“Vanimórë,” the man said.  
  
Hendunár stopped breathing. He knew the name, they all did, knew whom this was because he had been made to see it in the Everlasting Dark. His presence dimmed Valinor, black hair, skin like the ice-crown of Taniquetil, blazing violet eyes. He was vivid as a lightning strike over a storm-dark sea.  
  
“Do not worry,” he said in a rich, accented voice. “I have not come to disturb her, but Fingolfin said a thing...he said I looked like thee.”

A storm shrouded the so-called Holy Mountain. Thunder broke the whirling black clouds. The Valar, or some of them, made their displeasure at Vanimórë's presence felt. He said, without looking: “Cease.” Just one word, and the storm stuttered, grumbling to an end. Incredibly, Hendunár wanted to laugh.  
“Yes,” he said. It was true.  
  
“I am sorry.” The apology in his tone was unfeigned.

“Sorry?” Hendunár repeated, uncomprehending. It was unsettling, yes, but... “Thou couldst have looked like _him._ ” He took a moment to breathe. Pain, regret, tamped down as he waited in Lórien, rushed up like a wildfire as if called directly by this man, this god, Sauron's son — and Móriel's.  
“I wanted a child. So did she, but even in the Long Peace, she did not quicken. I thought it was my fault.”

It had been too long since he gave his feelings voice. In Lórien he must be always calm, always waiting, lest Móriel wake. Now, the words poured forth.  
“She only had my second-best love. I should never have married her. I was young and proud and hurting. Or we should have stayed with Fingolfin. But she would not leave Finrod's host, and I...if he could not love me as I desired, then I wanted to be away from him, not to see him. But he was my Lord. I would have died for him. I should have! Hells, but we are fools when we are young, when we love! We would still have died, I have no doubt, but perhaps her death would have been clean— ”

“The only clean deaths, as thou callest them, were in battle.” Vanimórë cut across him. “Those who died of sword stroke or ax were fortunate. Rape is a weapon of war among orcs, and Men, too. So too, is torture.”

“I know.” Memory ignited. They had raped him too, before roasting him alive, spitting him like a coney over the blazing fire, but still he had seen him, Sauron, what he did to Móriel...

He let the emotion come in a wave that shuddered through him, built to a cry of rage and grief. He flung it at the uncaring sky. There were no tears, only the fire of ancient anguish. He screamed as he had not since that day, or night, or the eternity of his torture.  
“You will scream,” the orcs had promised as he defied them proudly. “In the end, they all scream.” And he had.

His face was pressed against Vanimórë's cheek. He breathed in sandalwood, leather, clean flesh. Arms held him as none had since Fingolfin. So long without the iron strength of a man's arms, his body pressing into honed, hard muscles. Black hair wept through his fingers. Tremors run through Vanimórë's body as he said, “Hells, what good am I if I cannot make things _right_?”  
  
It struck Hendunár then, and profoundly, that Vanimórë was another victim of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. He had been shown glimpses of Sauron's son (her son) dancing before Morgoth, supple and sinuous, a chain running from his throat to the fallen Vala's hand, whirling, graceful and deadly, down a great hall, his twin blades cutting the throats of bound prisoners with terrifying accuracy, blood stippling his naked body before he knelt at Sauron's feet. He had seen him in battle, a poem of destruction. But he had also witnessed (they all had) Vanimórë defy the Valar and walk into Aman with a Silmaril; they had heard Eru speak to him from beyond the world.

“No,” he said, the word stifled with emotion. “There is no blame upon thee, of all people.” His arms tightened.

“Nor on thee,” Vanimórë murmured.

Sword-callused hands caught his face. Vanimórë kissed his brow, the sculpted mouth firm, warm. It felt like a blessing, as if Vanimórë absorbed the pain into himself. Hendunár felt, for the first time since he had been freed from the Void, a kind of peace. His forehead sank forward to rest against Vanimórë's. Their breaths mingled in silence.

“I do not know what else to do,” he said eventually. “I failed her.”

“Thou didst no such thing. The both of thee shared in the Doom of the Noldor and that lies at the feet of Mandos. He will pay for that in full. Fëanor has vowed it.” A fleeting smile came and went in the purple eyes, then it vanished into pain beyond measure. “Tell me: What was she like, before?”

“Lovely. Very strong of will. Clever. Passionate. She deserved better than I.”  
  
“Thou dost wrong thyself. We do not choose whom we love.”

“That makes it no easier to bear.”

“No,” Vanimórë agreed. “Nothing does.”

“She would not blame thee,” Hendunár said out of a sudden inner knowledge. “Wilt thou not even see her?”

“No.” It was like a wall thrown up. “What if she sensed him in me? Does she speak of it when she wakes? Does she dream?”  
  
“Yes. But not as she once did.” Not the gut-churning screams of a woman driven mad by pain and horror. “Now there is rarely anything at all.”

“What of the others? She was not the only one.” Vanimórë spun to face Irmo, who waited at a distance. The power and sensual elegance in the move was breathtaking.  
  
“None of them were kept as long as she,” he said. “Some of them remain here as handmaidens, others have returned to their families. I have found that none heal completely.”

“Yes, that is known as _life_ ,” Vanimórë said savagely. “Being human. Something the Valar should have learned of a long time ago.” He stared at the peak of far-off Taniquetil as if he would raze it.  
  
“I did what I could,” Irmo returned. “But thou art right. We do not know what it is to live. Perhaps we will learn.”  
  
“What wilt thou do?” Vanimórë turned to face Hendunár.

“I will stay with her.” He was surprised. “What else can I do?”

“Nothing. It seems that no-one can do anything.” There was a perilous anger in Vanimórë that showed as red-black flame in his eyes. Raze Taniquetil? He could burn down Valinor if he wanted.  
  
“I do not think she wants to come back,” Hendunár laid a hand on the black-clad arm, the muscles like steel under his fingers. The beautiful face turned to him. “What does she have to come back to? Me? Her mother? Is that enough?”  
  
“Sometimes we have _nothing_ ,” Vanimórë said coldly. “And that has to be enough.”  
  


OooOooO

The moon drifted west, illuminating the white froth of the waterfalls above the sleeping valley. Or mostly asleep. The meeting had lasted some hours, but was in no wise a war council proper; that would come. Slowly, people had bidden one another good night. The lamps had been covered. Gil-galad had been deep in conversation with Fingolfin when Tindómion left. Good. The winter had brought them together but also kept them apart. There was an almost total lack of privacy, certainly not enough to allow for the kind of intimacy he desired and shied away from, and _hungered_ for.

There had been a different, remembered intimacy, though: that of war. Although one could not call the skirmishes they had been engaged in war, Tindómion had found himself completely terrified — for Gil-galad. Rebirth did not mean immunity from death. The fear had made Tindómion savage when he fought; he did not simply kill, he destroyed, slamming orc-bodies into the cold earth with sword and shield, leaving them broken, dying. His only thought was to stay beside Gil-galad swearing that _this time_ he would never let him out of his sight. Was that at the root of his denial, he wondered, fear of losing Gil-galad again? Yet restraint had not helped him before. It had not helped either of them.

As if that were not enough, seeing Fëanor and Fingolfin had felt like a hammer-blow in his loins. His face had burned at their welcoming kisses. Meeting his father had been easier, but not that much easier, which did not even have the power to surprise him any more. He was too fully aware now of the attraction between the scions of Finwë.

Gil-galad turned his head as Tindómion left, his look level, unsmiling, yet as intimate as a blade in the heart, and as painful. To walk away was like pulling himself from quicksand.

OooOooO

Edenel had watched them, when they came. Tindómion and Gil-galad had arrived in Imladris only a day after the Greenwood delegation. He had listened to their lords and warriors speak of the winter fighting and he saw, from a distance, how those two interacted.

He had come because he could not keep away, because he wanted to see Tindómion again, come as close to the fire as he could, but he realized, as he observed, that he could not simply use the Fëanorion, as much in need of the the _Anguish_ as he himself (always) was. Tindómion needed Gil-galad.

The desire that ran between the scions of Finwë had never surprised him. How could it? It had begun with Finwë and himself. There was no room for any-one else when the need ran so deep and so close in the blood. That being said, he thought he also understood Tindómion's stubborn refusal to submit; it allied with his own determination not to reveal himself as a Finwëion. It was, among other things, armour against further loss.  
  
He had distanced himself tonight from the feast, from even a glimpse of Fëanor and Fingolfin. He was not certain he would have the strength of will to deny himself if he saw them.

But one thing he could do, both selfish and unselfish, was to give Tindómion and Gil-galad a night together, if he was there to weave the spell. Nothing was certain. War was coming. Perhaps they could give each another the release of the _Anguish_.  
  


OooOooO

 


	72. ~ The Uncovering~

  
  


**~ The Uncovering ~**

~ There were times he wanted to be able to hate Tindómion, times that he came very close to it.

“I know,” Fingolfin said as they watched Tindómion leave, the light polishing that glory of bronze hair that swayed behind him, richer than any kingly cloak. “The distance between great hate and great love is thinner than a shadow's edge.”

“He would not let me out of his sight during the winter whenever there was a skirmish,” Gil-galad said through set teeth. “As soon as we were back in camp he became like marble. He is driving me mad.”  
  
“He loves thee.”

“Me, or an idea of me that is safe to cling to?”

Fingolfin's eyes, so like Gil-galad's own, brushed over his face like a touch.  
”Thou,” he murmured. “Remember he had to live so long without thee and that this new...revelation has startled him. Thou, less so, I think. We all orbited around Fëanor in the Dark; we all clung together. He did not have that. He clung to no-one except memory.”

“I am no longer a memory. None of us are.” He tilted his head, a frisson of arousal streaking down his spine to his belly. “It was thee who wakened him. I was there. I saw it.”  
  
Fingolfin's eyes fractured the lamplight and gathered it. His black brows drew down. He moved a hand to Gil-galad's shoulder.  
“Forgive me.”

“What is there to forgive? He instigated it. I saw it all. And I understood. It did not hurt me.” He half-smiled. “It woke me to new possibilities.”

Fingolfin still looked troubled, searching to the back of Gil-galad's eyes as if he could see the truth.  
  
“Thou art just as irresistible as Fëanor, and Tindómion looks so like him.”

“Yes,” Fingolfin breathed. “A Fëanor who never learned how to live, how to love. But very much his own man for all that. He is no pale reflection.”

“Thinks't thou I would love and want a reflection of any-one?”

Fingolfin's mouth curled into an answering smile. “No.”

“All his passion seemed poured into battle, and music.” Gil-galad tasted ire on his tongue, knew he was being unfair. “I know he withheld for me. For my soul. Oh, Eru, I look forward to the day when the Valar fall. My people, those I ruled in Lindon, even now, as they free themselves from their bonds, they are leashed to the past, they struggle like butterflies escaping a cocoon. I want them to leave those bonds behind, shattered and broken, to live in glory, in freedom. As they should have. As we all should have.”

“Many of my people are the same,” Fingolfin said. “Such deeply-ingrained laws and beliefs, driven home by the threat of punishment beyond death are not easily left behind. And now there is Turgon's faction.” His mouth thinned, hard, kingly, unforgiving. “But it will never,” he promised, “become what it was. _never._ ”

“I know. We will not allow it. I want to rewrite the story.” Gil-galad wove his fingers around the scene that played out in his mind. “a hundred times, in a hundred different ways, the times when Tindómion and I came so close and did not touch.”  
  
“Thou wilt,” Fingolfin assured him. “And a thousand times more.”

“And what of thee?” Gil-galad asked softy.

Fingolfin's long white lids dropped to cover his eyes; a smile glinted. Its sensuality startled Gil-galad. Fingolfin was so proud, so controlled, so well-veneered. He bore himself like the legend he was. And then Gil-galad remembered firelight and music and a drug bitter on his tongue, and what he had seen that wild, wild night of _Nost-na-Lothion_ , and knew that he himself was just like Fingolfin, his true self hidden under a glaze of steel. Even now, or perhaps especially now.

“I can handle Fëanor,” Fingolfin said. A shadow moved across his face. “At least when he is not overcome by madness. That must never happen again. He must remain High King, but he must be _careful_ We all must. At least for now.”

“I know,” Gil-galad returned. “And that boot pinches. I am tired to my soul of being _careful_.”

“We all are.” Fingolfin drew him close, kissed the side of his mouth. The touch lingered like the stroke of flame.  
  
Gil-galad strode to his chambers, needing to slake the thirst for sex that coiled in his groin, desperate to the edge of pain. Well, he could see to it himself; it would not be the first or last time. When he was High King there had been no other way.  
  
He walked into complete darkness and stopped. Usually, at least one lamp would be left burning. He could not even see the banked fire. Something old, old and sorcerous whispered across his skin like a breath, and his hand went to his sword-hilt. And there it rested, because the feeling was not ill.

A man stepped out of the dark. All Gil-galad could see was white hair, a glint of eyes, but he knew the wood-Elves ways of war, how they concealed themselves, and all those whom had come here had worn battle-markings. He released his breath, asked, curtly,   
“Whom art thou?”

“I am of the Wood, King Gil-galad.” The voice, though, did not hold the distinctive Silvan accent; it bore nothing, as if wiped clean of any individuality of birth or nation, leaving the polished words formed out of stone.

“So I guessed, since I cannot see thy face. What wouldst thou, then?”

“I would give you a night with Tindómion.”

“ _What_?” Gil-galad demanded, as a red-hot rage rushed up in his chest. “Thou dost not have the right to give me any such thing.”  
  
“I do not, no. Yet I would give it, regardless.”

“Thou art the one he was waiting for that night.” Jealousy seethed in his throat. “Why dost thou not go to him, then?”

A warm, subtle laugh answered him. “I want to, but what lies between the two of you is greater. And you have never felt the _Anguish_ have you? The magnificent pain and cleansing of it? I have. And I know you need it, and Tindómion also. All of you need it.”

Gil-galad sought out the invisible features, but such was the art of the Silvans, he could see nothing but the pale moon-gleam of eyes, the cloudy white hair spilling about wide shoulders.

“It is not in thy gift to give me Tindómion,” he said, hands clenching into fists.

“There are old magics, Gil-galad, and I can use them. A night such as you shall never forget. There will be darkness, and darkness hides many secrets, even from onself.” He moved, circling Gil-galad slowly, almost brushing him. “What do you think keeps you apart? Is it simply the old dance foisted on you by the Valar's Laws, the poison spread by Elbereth through your mother, or their malice sunk into every pore of Middle-earth, even as Morgoth's is, still, and walks it in the shape of orcs, and Malantur, erstwhile Mouth of Sauron.”

“The Valar have no power over us any more,” Gil-galad refuted. “Sauron is gone beyond my vengeance. And what is between myself and Tindómion is none of thy concern.”

“No, it is not,” the stranger admitted. “But I heard him singing here, playing the _Noldolantë_ and I was drawn to him, as whom would not be? His fire, his beauty, his sorrow, his anger. But he burns for _you._. And both of you _hurt_. I can give you something to help that, but I am selfish enough to want to be part of it. Why not? You must know you are glorious. Perhaps you are not accustomed to it yet: people telling you they desire you. But you should be. You will be.”

Despite his anger, (his jealousy) heat stroked like a caress up Gil-galad's spine, into the roots of his hair.  
“Whom _art_ thou?” He did not know who had come with the Greenwood delegation save Prince Bainalph, but he would find out, and the stranger must know that.

“Just some-one who wants you, and Tindómion, both together, who wants all of you, but I would also give you the gift of the _Anguish_ and that is no light offer.”  
  
“And what is it?” Gil-galad had not heard the name before. It would not have been talked of in his poisonous court, or only in whispers, though the Avari indulged in their sins (as they were called when he was High King) openly, and without shame. He remembered their rites in Mordor, and resentment flared anew. _Be careful._ Hells, had they not, all of them, had enough of that? Yet even now he felt somewhat constrained by his mother's presence in Imladris. He did not see her often and she did not seek him out. There was bridge made of cobwebs slung between them and neither wanted to test what weight it would bear. Forgiveness was not enough.  
“Tell me of it,” he said.

“I will show you, if you allow it.”

Heat emanated from the man's skin, but his scent was nothing like that which Gil-galad associated with the Silvans; this was a white, scorched odour, clean and fierce. It reminded him, puzzlingly, of Fëanor.

“Why should I?”  
  
“Because you will not go to him yourself. You are too proud, and he will not come to you. I am your...intermediary.”

“If we need an intermediary,” Gil-galad said with ice in his mouth. “Then nothing is resolved.”  
  
“He fears to lose you. He fears that somehow all this, your rebirth with the others, everything, will be taken away again.”

“And how dost thou know him so very well?”

“I do not,” the man said. “But I know people, and it is not difficult to see behind their eyes. Survivors find it very difficult to trust, to believe in hope, to accept that anything good can come into their lives and remain there.”  
  
Some of the anger calmed within Gil-galad. It was all there in the stranger's polished-marble voice.  
“Then thou art a survivor too, if thou canst understand that.”

There was a moment's pause before the answer. “Yes. But we all are, in different ways. You survived the Dark.”  
  
“I am not going back to the Dark,” Gil-galad dismissed. “Even if we die again, that sentence is gone.” He turned. “But it was not Morgoth who sent us into the Void.”

“Ironic, is it not? Though no doubt he was delighted.” Light as a spring breeze, fingers touched his face. “I saw you fight in Mordor with Tindómion, until the very last. I saw him stand beside your body when it was cleansed, before you were coffined. It broke him. Many of us are broken, and nothing is ever truly healed.”

Gil-galad thought of his father's death; he had felt it and it had torn out his heart. He remembered the loneliness after, his natural instincts bent awry, over-watched by a mother with hawk-eyes and a heart of thorns, and how meeting Tindómion, he felt he had been given something back, something priceless. _He still is._  
“I saw it too. We were shown everything to break what was left of our hearts.”

“And our hearts do break, do they not? Over and over.”  
  
Gil-galad's breath went in. He shivered at memory. “Yes.” _And so was thine, over and over._ Something beyond love, beyond even grief, reached out from the depths of his soul, his own anguish mingling with the stranger's, one broken spirit recognizing another. He remembered the agonies of his dying wounds, his last sight of Tindómion's beautiful face. But now he was _alive_ , alive! and there should be nothing between them. His heartbeat echoed in his ears, fast, light.  
“How dost thou know he will be amenable to this?”  
  
The stranger laughed, low and deep. “How can you even ask that? Both of thee are like bowstrings drawn to full torsion. The darkness will free you.”

“Darkness,” Gil-galad whispered, and drew his hand through the man's loose, heavy hair. “So. This is because thou doth want Tindómion?”

“Did I not make it plain? Yes, but you also. And all of you if I could, all of Finwë's descendants.” The tall, strong body pressed against him, hot, hard, every part of him.

“And couldst thou do that, in thy darkness? Have all of them together?”

“I do not know,” the man returned slowly. “I wish I could.”

Gil-galad's groin surged with blood. He might have been suspicious that this stranger was something other, some dark spirit sent by the Mouth, or even by the Valar, but he felt no evil in the man and doubted that such a creature would pass through both Glorfindel's defenses and Vanimórë's. In any event, the Valar would never use sex as a weapon, he thought. And still...in one quick movement he brought his dagger up, its point set to drive into the man's throat.  
“I will have thy vow I can trust thee,” he whispered. “Do harm to Tindómion and all the wide leagues of Arda, or Aman will not hide thee from me.”

If anything, the heightened tension roused him the more. He heard the stranger's breath falter, just once, then regather itself.  
“I vow it. But a vow would mean naught were I of the enemy, would it? And you do not really believe I am.”  
  
“Tindómion is not the only one who fears losing some-one. One never knows.”  
  
“Ask Vanimórë,” the man said. “He will vouch for me.”

“Vanimórë,” Gil-galad wondered curiously. “Thou art of the Wood, so thou sayest. Why should I not ask not Thranduil's emissary, Prince Bainalph? I assume he could also vouch for thee?”  
  
“Bainalph is occupied this night. Do not disturb him.” There was a note of protectiveness in the words and that, perhaps more than anything brought the dagger away from his throat.

“Then give me thy name. Thou knowest I will find it out.”  
  
“It will mean nothing to thee,” the other replied. “But very well. I am called Edenel.”

Gil-galad reached toward Vanimórë, shaping his name with his mind. The response was instant, surprised as he drew back the bright darkness of power ready to lash out at any enemy.  
 _Thou canst trust him, yes._

He saw a glint of white teeth in the darkness as if Edenel knew what the answer would be, and sheathed the dagger. Before he could speak, warm lips slammed into his own. No hesitancy, no gentleness, and he would not have wanted it. It was the savage kiss of two warriors.  
“Well?” Edenel asked raggedly, deeply, as he broke it.

“Yes,” Gil-galad said.

OooOooO

Tindómion's chamber was dark, smelling of the cool night air, dried flowers, herbs. He slid off his formal robe, standing only in breeches and shirt, and began to unloose his braids. It was a night-time ritual that could usually soothe him, but there was no peace to be had now, simply being in the same room as them, Fëanor, Fingolfin, Gil-galad, his own father, even Vanimórë, reft of his sensual fire, had him hard and aching.  
  
He was accustomed to self-control but it had been like drawing on old, ill-fitting clothes, the ones he had worn for so long in Lindon, that felt like a cage. His anger at himself had almost suffocated him, sent him out of their meeting, yet being away from them was worse. He had come to realize he wanted to be with them, of them always, and nothing less could satisfy him. But that required he step into what was, to him, an unknown world, one where he could truly be himself...  
  
When he felt slim fingers in his hair he whirled on reflex, came up hard against a tall, steely body. He saw the moonlit glow of eyes, a fall of pale hair and his heartbeat quickened, hot, fiery.

It was the same feeling, he thought, the same delicious, blood-scorching sensation of sin and passion. Perhaps it was simply that he could not see anything of this man save those eyes and that hair...  
  
No words were spoken. They ran through sleeping Imladris, up shallow stairs, through quiet gardens to a room that was dark even to Tindómion's eyes, lightless as a cavern in the roots of a mountain.

There was magic here, an echo of the Song, of starless dark somewhere far away, long ago. Ancient. A quiver ran across his heated flesh. He smelled, again, the scent of diamonds burning and flame rose within him, fell and _hungry_.

And then, another aroma, and one he would know beyond his own death, if he walked as a houseless _fëa_ for eternity, a perfume as tempting as mulled wine on a midwinter night. He reached out, and hair like watered silk ran through his fingers.

His mind bleached of thought. There was no room for it, and he was sick of _thinking_. With a clash like titan fires meeting, they came together, struggling, grappling, fingers digging into muscle, thighs sliding over thighs, clothes peeling off and trampled underfoot. Edenel was with them, and Tindómion did not care; he wished they all were...  
  
He remembered, after, the night with Bainalph, how it had been for him, but now he learned how it was to receive the _Anguish_. One must _want_ it, to be taken beyond the edge of need and pain. He had not fully understood that there was such discipline in it, to take and take and not yield to the need for release, to hold back until the agony and pleasure was too much. Perhaps that was why not everyone could give or accept it, but he learned that he could, that Gil-galad could, and how not? It was not simply sex, it was another dimension of it, terrible and transcendent. His hunger was such that the touch of a hand could have overcome him, but he willed it otherwise as Edenel drove into him. His head flung back, his flesh sleeked with perspiration, every sinew trembled, he panted and cursed, teeth biting out words of hate and love and pleas and orders. He was dying, he was soaring into a million stars and burning with them as, at last, he allowed himself to release.

It was the greatest peace he had ever known. He felt purged, light as air, cleansed, his body lax. For a long time, it seemed, he simply floated in it until the touch of hands on him drew him back and, astonishingly, the heat in his loins grew again. Edenel had said he had received the _Anguish_ many times and intimated he had given it, too. One would think once would be enough, but no, never, not for them.

Edenel drew him close, whispered in his ear, “Take him there as you took Bainalph.”  
  
He did, and Gil-galad took it, all steel muscles and beauty, and pain, so much pain, and glory. Tindómion heard himself command the man he would always call his king to hold _hold,_ not to come, and Gil-galad swore at him, snarling, quivering around him, fire-hot.  
Tindómion wanted to take everything he was, devour him over and over, but he too, had to give everything and withhold his own need until it seemed there was nothing but the torment, (and the wild, delicious delight of being inside Gil-galad's body, controlling it even as he controlled himself) and then the door which opened into something other, beyond orgasm, beyond pleasure.  
  
It did not end there; it could not. Edenel was with them, who must be thanked for what he had done.  
“Both of you,” he whispered. “Do you understand?”  
  
They understood, moving and seeking by touch. The night was a dark ferocity of musk and sex and long, lithe bodies entwined, straining, hair slipping from wet skin, moans, gasping breaths, names cried out in the extremity of passion.

Gil-galad's response had startled Tindómion, but in Edenel there was so much horror, so much need of forgetfulness, it was almost terrifying. Tindómion thought, faced by it, that he was over-matched, and then he split open his heart to the anguish of Gil-galad's death, and flung himself into Edenel's soul and body. Edenel writhed on him, and Gil-galad's cock slid hotly against his... _oh, gods_ , it was impossible to restrain himself, but (his teeth bared, clenched) he _must_. The _Anguish_ demanded the sternest self-control.

And something broke. Like a man caught by an undertow, he was swept into a tumult of pain: Gil-galad's, Maglor's and then others, the Fëanorion brothers at their father's death, spiked by Maedhros's torture in Angband, joined by Fingon's, Fingolfin's shattering at his knowledge of Fëanor's death, Fëanor's mad fury at Finwë's murder, and the awful realisation of his own fate: trapped in the Everlasting Dark, helpless, while his sons carried the Oath he had bound them to. With them, incomprehensibly, was Vanimórë, and Tindómion had never truly known what his life was, could not have imagined it. Agony of mind and soul eviscerated him, and he became one with it, poured it into Edenel's desperate need....And it touched _power,_ ancient, dark, _vast_. There were no words for it, only the screams of those broken under its hammer.

And then, in the depths of it, the Dark was challenged. There was defiance, love, there was pride, blazing, unconquerable. It was Edenel, it was all of them, swords cast from nothing but sheer bloody-minded will. On the far edge of it Tindómion felt, _at last_ , Edenel allow himself release. Only then did he, with Gil-galad sharing every pulse, let his own body surge into orgasm.

OooOooO

It came upon Vanimórë as he lay in his rooms and was as silent as secret as an ambush.

The onslaught brought him to his feet in the darkness, then sent him to his knees. He felt them all, knew who they were, experienced what they had suffered. Edenel was the catalyst, dragging it from them to assuage his bottomless pain. And so, Vanimórë, who had the power to disengage himself, did not, and laid himself upon the rack, as they all did. How could he not? He knew what it was to need. _Fire to burn us clean._

It left him trembling from head to foot, damp with perspiration. His face burned with heat and his loins throbbed. He had come to orgasm without even touching himself, he realized in bemusement, and Dana's curse had not been able to withstand the collision of power and passion. It brought a faint, grim smile to his mouth as he cleaned himself, although he did not understand why he had been drawn into the cataclysm of Edenel's _Anguish_. Perhaps his link with Maglor? He shook his head, then stood very still in the fulminous silence of the aftermath. There was no possible chance Edenel could hide himself now, not with everyone of Finwëion blood having felt that. Perhaps that had been his plan. Or perhaps not.

OooOooO

Edenel did not want to move, wanted to lie enfolded in the fierce, crossed embrace of Gil-galad and Tindómion, their arms locked around him, legs entwined with his. It had been the most superb experience, the deepest _Anguish_ , the most unexpected, although perhaps he should have known how it would be with his brother's scions. Yet it had not been Finwë with him, but all the others, sharing with him, _giving_ , channeled through Tindómion and Gil-galad whom must have wills of steel to hold it until the moment he, Edenel allowed himself release.

Carefully, he raised himself and looked at them. The room was grey with the first slackening of the dark and there was no need, any-more to weave the shadows around him. They slept, magnificent as predators, in a tossed ocean of bronze and black hair, every relaxed limb perfectly carved. He wanted to wake them, join with them again – and again, because he would never be able to get enough, but he had pushed himself too far, allowed too much to break from his control. He would not be able to hide any longer and so he must go; he had told Bainalph that he would be leaving today, heading north to spy out Angmar. With Elgalad in Imladris, the prince did not need Edenel.  
  
Quietly, he washed and dressed, gathering his gear and weapons as the room warmed with the first hint of sun beyond the mountains. It gilded the sleepers' alabaster flesh with a hint of gold, like sleeping statues.  
  
 _Thank you._ He reached out a hand toward them, then closed his eyes, turned and out, opening the outer door to – fire.

There were hints of Finwë in the splendid architecture of his face, but Fëanor had been birthed out of the wrath of stars. He was impossibly beautiful, midnight hair loose and streaming, wearing only a simple night-robe that fell back from his long legs as he strode up the steps. And stopped. His eyes were wild with shock and questions, and recognition flashed over his features like a blow. Even with the battle marking bracketing his face, with glass-white hair and eyes, Edenel looked like his brother.  
  
“Whom art thou?” Fëanor demanded, and moved again, bringing them level on the top step. His hand rose to almost, but not quite, touch. “ _Whom art thou?_ ”

Edenel raised his head proudly, defiantly to the merciless uncovering of the sun.  
“Fëanor,” he said. “I am Edenel of the _Ithiledhil_.” He watched the black brows snap together, the gem-silver eyes press into his own, fire-hot. “I and my people were taken by Morgoth long ago when the Quendi still walked under the stars of Cuiviénen. We were... _changed._ ” He heard other light, swift steps but did not look away from Fëanor's face. “But once that was not my name. And once, before Morgoth took us, I was your father's twin. I am your uncle, Fëanor.”  
  
  


OooOooO

 


	73. ~ No Longer Hidden ~

  
**~ No Longer Hidden ~**

 

  
~ It was only a little after sunrise, but Vanimórë found Fanari already up. She was sitting in the garden outside her chambers, Túrin beside her. An empty breakfast tray showed evidence of the child's healthy appetite, and now his head was bent over a square of parchment as he explained the picture in a serious voice. Fanari nodded, praising him and he smiled sweetly, brilliantly, a smile that would turn heads and inflame hearts when he was older, but now simply charmed. Then he completely forgot his artwork as Beleg strode onto the terrace. Túrin rushed to him, holding up his arms and took a flying leap into Beleg's, who caught him, held him tight. Small hands clung, curling into long silver hair. Beleg cast a look and a smile carrying the weight of hidden and unforgotten grief at Vanimórë, before bearing the boy away. Fanari waved after them, and rose to her feet.

“May I see?” he asked.

She handed over the sketch: twiggy trees, an elongated stick-man with a sword, a jagged lightning bolt rending the sky behind him. They exchanged a long look.  
“He does not say anything,” she murmured. “And he says that it is just a story in his head. But in time...”

“Yes,” he said. “In time. Not yet, I hope. Let him have a childhood.”

“They grow so fast, Mortal children. And then, in an eyeblink, he will be gone again, and break Beleg's heart.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “Whatever his purpose here, he is still Mortal. How can that be Eru's will? How can it be his destiny?”

“I know not. I am no sage, my lady,” he said wryly. “In fact I feel like a very great fool.”

Her expression softened.  
“That thou art not.”

“Thinks't thou I was wrong to take Túrin from his mother?” he asked the question he had come to have answered.

“No,” she replied without hesitation. “One does not hurt children, even by omission. If thou must blame anyone, blame us, here. I liked Cell. I was with her often. So was Aredhel and Rosriel, and we did not guess. And Rosriel blames herself because she mistreated her own child, and thought she should have been the one to see the signs.”

“Sometimes the signs are not so easy to see, lady.” He picked up the breakfast tray.

“Túrin grew too quiet.” She turned on her heel. “It seemed strange, but I thought he was missing Beleg. Come in.” She swept up the steps to her rooms. Vanimórë looked around. They were the most restful he had ever seen, their colours merging in a soft symphony of welcome. A bowl of early primroses bloomed on a table, an easel stood in the light from the long windows.

“Please, sit down,” she gestured to a padded settle and poured a steaming tisane for them both.  
“But that quietness,” she continued. “Gil-galad was the same, Rosriel said.” Distant lightning flashed into her eyes. For all her outward calm she did not forget or forgive, not truly, he thought.

“Lady, I did not know what Dana was and I have known her for thousands of years.”

“Well,” she said after a moment. “Sometimes all we can do is pick up the broken shards.”

“In the East,” Vanimórë murmured. “They mend broken pottery with molten gold, thus the object is even more beautiful for having been broken.”

Fanari's smile blossomed. “That is so wise. So beautiful. And yet, I wish, as if wishing were any use at all! That it need not have been broken.”

“So do I, lady.” Vanimórë sipped his tea, mint and chamomile, lavender and honey, and allowed the feeling of well-worn, well-earned peace to sink into him. Fanari had, he thought, deliberately created her own haven-within-a-haven. He imagined Tindómion, coming in from patrols or skirmishes in the mountains, or the old Northern Wars, and sinking down, stretching his long body, relaxing as he talked to her. He glanced toward the easel, unable to see the picture at this angle. Fanari beckoned him over to it.  
  
It was a battle scene, two great war stallions galloping to some clash of armies, hooves churning up dust. Their riders were armoured, crowned helms on their heads, faces beautiful and terrifying as burning swords.

“They were magnificent in battle together,” Fanari said, eyeing the work with a tilt of her head. “So everyone said who saw them. I watched them spar in Lindon, and it was poetry.”  
  
“Thou didst always love thy son?” Vanimórë questioned.

She turned her eyes to him, thoughtful and grave, then glanced around as if to make sure she would not be overheard.  
“I was dying,” she said quietly. “And thou must not speak of this to Maglor or Fëanor, or anyone. Only a few know, Glorfindel, Círdan...it was the shock, more than anything, the violation, and I had loved Maglor...which made it worse, but it was that which saved me, I think. I was unconscious, falling into death when I felt Tindómion's soul. I knew his name, I saw him. And I could not die and take him with me. He had to live, Maglor's son, a Fëanorion. I loved him then, yes. And I knew, I think I had known a long time that the Fëanorions were doomed.” She caught a breath, her eyes on his. “And it seemed to me so _damnably_ unfair. The Valar wanted to wipe them out, I know that now, erase them from the Earth. But I had one, a spark of them, within me.” She laid her hand flat on her belly. “I was not going to destroy that...potentiality, the man I saw, by dying. I was _not._.” Hot, angry tears glimmered in her eyes. “Not all mother's love their children. Sometimes things go...wrong inside them, as they did with Rosriel, courtesy of Elbereth.” The word came icy with hate. Oh, this woman could hate very well, Vanimórë thought, under her calm, so-very-civilized veneer. “But now, clear of that, she does love Gil-galad, although it is...difficult, for both of them. If your mother healed, my lord, she would love thee.”

Vanimórë smiled a little through a vast inner ache. “I thank thee,” he said courteously. “Didst thou know her?”

“Not really, though I met her in Vinyamar once. Her mother was a famous scholar. I have read some of her work. It was deemed rather...inflammatory in Valinor, I believe, though nothing like Fëanor's of course.” She turned back to the sketch which blazed with passion and life, said calmly, “No doubt thou hast done deeds that many would call abhorrent.”

“Yes,” Vanimórë owned without apology. “I have. And I have no doubt I will do more.”

“So has my son.” She did not lift her eyes from their critical scrutiny of her work. “Life is not simple, is it? After Gil-galad died, and when there was war again against Angmar, or even when orcs were in the mountains, I heard the whispers of his savagery, and after Celebrian left, Tindómion joined with Elladan and Elrohir to become vengeance. Nothing truly mattered to him. Oh, he could love still, but Gil-galad's death left his heart as butchered as the orcs he slaughtered, and he was very fond of Celebrian. And I still loved him. There is nothing more fierce than a mother's love, nothing more enduring, save a Fëanorion's.” Then she did look at him and all the love for her son was in her eyes, bright and deeper than the infinity beyond a midnight sky. “I think any mother would love thee and more, be proud of thee. I would want to return from madness and grief to thee, as I turned from death to come to my son.”  
  
It was a moment before he could say anything.  
“I thank thee, but it seems she does not want to return for anyone, even her husband, her mother. I went there, to Lórien. I saw Hendunár, her husband. He does not think she wants to come back.”

“Surely, _surely_ it is worse to live in the grief of the past?” She sounded bewildered. “I would not want to dream of past torment when I could be alive and with those I loved. No, we never forget, but we have something else.”

“I cannot speak for her,” he said. “No-one can.” He wished that Fanari were his mother; he thought she would have climbed out of any pit of pain and horror for Tindómion, for anyone she loved. But then, Tindómion was worth a mother's love. He was...not.

She laid a hand gently against his cheek. “Nothing is over,” she murmured. “Nothing is ended.” She stepped past him to pick up the cups, then turned toward the balcony and said, “Good morning, my Lord Maglor.”  
  
“As a practically adopted Fëanorion,” Vanimórë heard him say in that inimitable voice, gold-and-honey. “I believe we can dispense with the titles. I came to see the sketch. Thou didst say it would be finished today?”

“Well it would be,” she replied, smilingly. “Save for a certain young boy. He was up early. But almost.”

Maglor, whom had five younger brothers, laughed, but when he turned, the amusement froze off his face.  
“I did not know thou didst have company,” he said, frigid as the ice crown of Carn Dûm.

Vanimórë inclined his head. Behind him, Fanari said pacifically, “Prince Vanimórë wished to speak to me of something.”

Silver eyes torched his own. Maglor said briefly, curtly, “I will come back later, lady,” spun on his heel and strode out.

“Now, is he jealous?” Vanimórë wondered.

“Of my speaking to thee. No. Of thou speaking to me? Only he or thee could answer that.”

He questioned her with a look. She returned it unblinkingly. “I could have cut that atmosphere with a butter-knife, my Lord. But it is not for me to guess what lies between the two of thee.”

Too much, he thought, and not enough. Something begun in pain and horror and ended too soon, at least for him.

“Thou art a good woman,” he grinned.  
  
“Thou wilt make me blush, and that I have not done since...before thou wert born, I daresay.” She subjected him to a frank appraisal. “Not that I would say no, if thou wert offering. I doubt any woman – or man – would, but in general I prefer women. They are not forever dashing off to war. Well,” she gleamed. “Aredhel, when she has the chance.”

She was trying to make him laugh, set him at ease with her, and he appreciated it more than she could know. It was not something he was accustomed to, this lack of tension. He bowed.  
“I am honoured, then, but thou didst want to marry Maglor once, I believe.”

She chuckled without embarrassment. “For the sake of accuracy, I wanted to _bed_ him, but in those days, and until very recently, marriage was the only road to such a thing. I suppose every hot-blooded girl and man, too, wanted a chance to bed the Fëanorions, despite the Laws, and despite the Doom that lay on them, even if they would never admit it. They were and are so _glamorous_. But canst thou imagine being married to a Fëanorion, even now? It would wear me to a rag. A Fëanorion son is quite enough. Besides, they rarely let anyone in but another of their blood, or Fingolfin's.” She looked at him pointedly. “Very rarely.”

“True enough,” Vanimórë agreed. “Still, being an adopted Fëanorion is a great honour.” He could not keep the amusement from his voice.

“Yes, it is,” she replied, straight-faced but with a lurking twinkle in her eye. “I cannot do anything without it is discussed, and they feel free to walk in on me at any time of the day or night. Well, some of them. Half of them are jealous and wish me otherwhere. That is to be expected.” She seemed unconcerned. “But I am glad Maglor and I are friends. Tindómion would find it difficult if we were not.”

Vanimórë wished he could also be friends with Maglor, but circumstances were not the same. He had, no matter how one looked at it, forced himself on the Fëanorion, an aggressive seduction, and Maglor had all the furious, unbending pride of his family.

 _I do not regret it. Not for a moment._  
  
“My lord.” His eyes snapped to the woman. Her tone was serious now. “I am glad thou art here, for want to speak to thee of Túrin. The young Men of Mordor; thou didst give them immortality.” She clasped her hands together tightly. “Hast thou not considered giving it to Túrin?”

He said without a blink, “Yes. I have. But not,” he added at the astonished, almost triumphant happiness that blazed up in her eyes. “until he knows whom he is.”  
  


OooOooO

~ Fëanor's heart exploded into fire. His mind flashed out to penetrate behind the stranger's eyes (but, no, he was no stranger). It slammed shut.  
  
“I will tell you,” Edenel said. “But you felt...enough of my mind. I would not have you see more. Not yet.”

Fingolfin, also clad as if he had come from his bed, hair a flurry of darkness about his beautiful face, came to a halt beside Fëanor. His mouth opened to shape a question, then closed.  
  
It was all there to be read in the icily sculpted lines of his face, although the bones held more of Fëanor than of Finwë. Most people believed Fëanor took after his mother but it was not true; there were too many similarities between himself and Edenel.

The door opened behind Edenel to reveal Tindómion and Gil-galad, eyes still filled with sex and sleep.

“Come to my rooms,” Fëanor snapped. “All of thee.”

  
Glorfindel had gone to speak with Lómion and Eärendil, but Maglor had come, his face questioning, with Tindómion and Gil-galad, house-robes tossed hastily over bed-warmed nakedness.  
Edenel said in that calm, accentless voice. “Although your father and I were not identical in looks or personality, we were inseparable. We lead our clan together.” His ice-white gaze swung between Fëanor and Fingolfin. “I was called, if it matters now, Élernil. Nothing and no-one could come between us. There was no room for any-one. We had friends, of course, and sometimes other lovers, but we needed nothing more. Your mother Miriel was one of our friends, or so I thought, until one day. We were talking together, she and I, when she made it plain that it was not friendship she wanted.”

It should not have been the shock that it was, he thought, careful with his words because her son stood before him. He would not have thought the delicate, deft-handed Miriel could be so forceful, nor so angry when he remained unresponsive and, at last, gently pushed her away. He had felt nothing at the press of her body, the seeking of her lips, neither pleasure nor revulsion, just nothing at all. In hindsight, he thought, he should have seen what she wanted before that day but, absorbed in his twin, he had not.

“I did not have eyes for her, nor for any woman. Not then, anyhow. It is different now; some of the _Ithiledhil_ are women, and we have, all of us, comforted one another and found release in the _Anguish_. Back then, though, was not interested. But she succeeded a little better with Finwë. He wanted children, yet he did not want to bind himself to anybody; he considered we were already bound. And we were, as much as any two souls could be.” He took a sip of wine. “But I could see he was torn, at least a little, and so I began to distance myself, to go on long journeys, hunting the darkness that lurked in the shadows. I thought if I was away long enough, Finwë would have the opportunity to turn wholly to Miriel, if he wanted to. I suppose I was testing him, furious that he would even look to another, but if that was what he wanted...” He shrugged the old pain, the sense of betrayal away. “Well, I was away, and long enough. He took me, Melkor's (whom you later named Morgoth) lieutenant, Sauron. He captured me and took me to Utumno amidst the ice of the north.”

The sunlight in the room seemed to dim as if blocked by dark wings – or darker memory. Fëanor took one of Edenel's hands and held it between both his own. Fingolfin closed his fingers over Edenel's shoulder. Maglor pressed closer, a frown between his black brows.

Edenel counted as he breathed, using an old calming technique. Let him tell the story; it was his. Better than drawing them into his memories. But it was not going to be an easy recital. He tried to distance himself, to look upon it as something that happened to a stranger, long ago.  
“They kidnapped many, but I think Sauron took me because I was a chieftain of the Tatyar. He would have taken Finwë also, had there been an opportunity, but I had strayed far into the Orocarni. We were spied on, all the Quendi, in those early days; the Dark would have known the leaders, but it was easier to get the wanderers, the hunters. I was wrapped in a cloak like fire and darkness and taken north, to Morgoth.”  
  
Fëanor's hold tightened. Behind their diamond-brightness fury rose up like a storm on the face of the sun.  
  
“I cannot speak of what happened there,” Edenel said. “I mean I will not. Not yet.” He turned his eyes away. “Most of Morgoth's captives succumbed to corruption...eventually. It was a long process.” A refined, degrading process, sometimes subtle, often brutal beyond the reach of any words; only screams could give it voice, torn from broken bodies and slaughtered innocence. “Many died of their wounds, of the...experiments. Some did not. I do not know why I survived, or how. There were a few only, who became the _Ithiledhil._ We all look the same.” He gestured with his free hand to himself. “I was the first. Sauron took me away from the pits. Other followed after me, and we were trained as warriors. Most of us already were, for we had learned, very early, to use weapons.” His throat closed up, rage to match Fëanor's scorching his gut. “We fought those whom had been our own kind, whom we hated, ah, _Eru_ I loathed them.” He searched the faces around him, and did not see condemnation, which he would have risen up against, only blazing, intent eyes and ever-growing horror and compassion that he could not face. “They had become _things_ , monstrous and ugly. Even now, to this day, I will show them no mercy. We were set against Balrogs like Coldagnir, the great Fell-wolves whom, then, were Maia like Sauron, only lesser, that Morgoth had trapped into the bodies of beasts. He called us his White Slayers and he did not touch us, after. But, without saying anything to one another, we all of us knew we were not his thralls. We had broken free of him even as we were changed to...this.”  
“We enacted the part of perfect slaves until we received orders for our first...mission. We were to return to our people, because we looked like Elves, still, and the Quendi had become wary. We would capture more of them, bring them back to Utumno. I was to return with my brother.” He paused, swallowed through a net of thorns. “But then the Valar came, bringing war upon Melkor. We only learned that later, of course; all we knew then was that winged gods descended upon Utumno and the earth itself shook and fire rose into the skies. Melkor called us back, but we would not listen.” He made it sound so easy, and it had been a battle of will-against-will. “And then, when the Valar took him, his presence vanished from our minds. It was after, when the moon appeared again through the storms that we renamed ourselves the _Ithiledhil_ , and I was appointed chieftain, as I had been our captain in Utumno, and most of the others knew me as Finwë's twin, that I had, with him, lead the Tatyar. We became our own people then. We swore blood oath that we would never hearken to Melkor or his servants, that whenever we came upon them we would fight them. So we did.” He threw back his head. “So we always have.”

“And thou didst not return to my father,” Fëanor stated softly.

“We did return to Cuiviénen,” Edenel said. “Secretly. We _had_ to see them, if only to assure ourselves that they had not all been taken, that they were still there, beautiful and uncorrupted. But how could we speak to them? Melkor's hand-prints were all over us; his work _inside_ us like blood, never to be washed away. We had done...dreadful things.”  
  
“Thou wert _made_ to do them,” Fingolfin corrected, his voice like an unsheathed blade. “Thou wert victims.”

“We were _changed._ But I wanted to _see_ him. And I did. He was with Miriel. He did not need me.”

Abruptly, Fëanor rose. “He did not look for thee?” he demanded.

“I think he did, but I could not feel him, tell him where I was. I was not...aware of being myself. And if I had been, I would not have wanted him to walk into Utumno.” He had to stop again, to struggle and to breathe. “Our connection was broken. He could not hear me and our people – his people – needed him. He could not simply wander away as I had.”

Fëanor burned up in wrath. “I would have. I would not have rested until I found thee. I would _never_ have abandoned one of my kin to that _monster_!”

“Fëanor,” Fingolfin's voice was quiet with warning. “Sometimes one's duties come before anything, and thou knowest that. _I_ could not walk away with thee and with father to Formenos and leave the Noldor without a leader.”

Fëanor whirled to face him. Edenel watched their faces, so alike, as he and Finwë had been alike, though not identical, but the pure blaze of their profiles was matched, like two flawless gems.

“It would have looked most odd if thou hadst, considering the reason I was banished.”

“Yet if I could have done it, I would have found a reason. Reconciliation, at the least. A protest against the Valar's edict. I could not. Our people needed me.”

“I think I was the reason your father lead the Noldor to Aman.” Edenel's words brought both warring sets of eyes back to his. “He wanted a place of safety for them. We followed them to the edge of the sea.”  
  
“And never spoke to him?” Fingolfin sounded as if he could not believe it.

Slowly, emphatically, Edenel shook his head. “He would barely have recognized me.”

“I would have.” Fëanor's artisan's fingers cupped Edenel's jaw. “So would he.”  
  
“It was over, and what we were...we died in Utumno.”

“No! Thou wert still Elves, unconquered, unbroken— ”  
  
“Oh, we broke,” Edenel flashed. “A thousand times! We just did not know how to _die._ ”  
  
He was enfolded by them, then, all of them, Tindómion and Gil-galad too, Maglor with them, pressing close to him about the locked arms of Fëanor and Fingolfin.

“Thou art _ours_ , Edenel Noldorán,” Fëanor pronounced. Possession was in his voice, the strength of his arms. Edenel accepted it, and clung back. Tears (so rare) clawed at the back of his throat and stung his eyes, but did not fall. He wanted never to let go, to absorb them into his pain and brokenness. But they had suffered enough, and he knew the voracious depths of his own hunger. The beautiful agony of the night still lingered in his body, and it would take little, nothing at all, to wake it again. Gently, he disengaged himself.  
“I will not leave my people,” he said, shaken to his roots. A long-dead rose, blighted by Utumno's black frost had blossomed in his chest. But it bore thorns. “They are not all Noldor, some are Vanyar, some are Sindar. Or were. Now we are the _Ithiledhil_. We have been together too long to part, and we do not get children. There is only us.”

Fëanor stared at him. “Thou must see father at the least,” he said, then: “Is this why my mother would never come back, out of guilt? She wanted thee, took father instead, and then thou didst vanish and never returned.”

“That was scarcely Miriel's fault,” Edenel said, thinking that had things been otherwise, had he not refused her, Fëanor might be _his_ son.

“Then she died.” Fëanor's jaw set. “And he married again, and that marriage failed too, after a while, but then, almost everything in Valinor faded.” He stalked the room, kicked a stool out of his path. “He is alone now, save for his household, and will not come to Middle-earth. He feels guilt that he ever took the Noldor to Aman.”  
  
“How could he know what it would be like?” Edenel defended his twin. “I might have done the same.”

Fëanor stopped, lifted his perfect brows. “Or wouldst thou have fought, as I would have?” He rolled tension from his wide shoulders and exhaled. “I love my father, but I could never bring myself to respect him, not after he wed Indis.” Fingolfin's eyes flashed to his, glittering, but he said nothing. “I thought him a man who ever needed a prop, who could not manage without some-one at his side, some-one to hold on to. At first it was me. We clung to one another, naturally. We had no-one else, with my mother gone. Then I grew tired of the constriction, and he turned to Indis. There was always something missing in him, something...lacking. Of course there was. Thou. No-one could replace thee.” He ran restless hands through clouds of black hair. “What didst thou do, after the Noldor were gone?”

“We wandered,” Edenel said, remembering. “For a long time after Utumno we sought...healing. A quaint notion, that. There is none, only the _Anguish_ , which transmutes the pain, for a while, as we discovered.” He flicked a glance at Tindómion and Gil-galad, saw the glory of it still laying under the structured beauty of their faces. They glowed, as if the sun nested in their bones. “Eventually we came into Beleriand, and Doriath because there were some among us whom had been of Elwë's people. But we did not join them. Even then, we knew we were set apart. When the Noldor returned we headed north. I had to _see_ my kin if nothing else. And thus I learned my brother had been slain by Melkor. I could not believe I had not _known_ , even with the severing of our soul-bond.”

Fëanor came to him. “I did not feel it either,” he said. “A shadow lay over it.” His eyes closed, briefly, hiding shards of pain.

Edenel gripped his hand. “Well, then. Later...We came to Mereth Aderthad.” Fingolfin looked startled. “We could pass, to the Noldor, as Sindar, as some are fair, and to the Sindar we were simply wanderers out of the South, from Taur im Duinath, the great forest where some Elves still dwelt beyond any king's writ. We were exceedingly careful, but I saw thee.” Edenel gazed at Fingolfin. “And thou, Maglor, I heard thy music. I saw thy brother's also, and Fingon, called the Valiant. I even spoke to some of the Noldor. It was...too much, it was a feast laid out for me after famine, yet a feast I could not partake in, a fire in the dead of winter I could not warm myself at.” And yet how the flame had called him! “After, we lingered south of Dor Caranthir among the Green Elves of Ossiriand. We fought in the Wars, sometimes mere skirmishes against orc bands or Fell-wolves, but in the great battles, too. On the margins, usually, with the Nandor or other wanderers like us who owned no king. Our hatred was, and is, still...very great.”  
  
“I wish thou hadst come to me.” Pain etched itself into Fingolfin's voice, and Edenel saw the abyss of loss that had awaited him in Beleriand: his half-brother's death. “Thou wouldst have been welcomed with all honour.”

“I wonder,” Edenel mused. “I know well that those who escaped Angband were never treated with honour, Fingolfin, but as spies. And some of them were, I grant you.”

Fingolfin nodded, his exquisite mouth set. “That was true, after the Long Peace, and I wish it were otherwise, but,” matter-of-factly, “I was dead then. I would not have condoned such arbitrary treatment but I do see the need for vigilance.”

 _If I had known how lonely thou wert,_ Edenel thought. He touched Fingolfin's hand. The blue-silver eyes met his. “Thy challenge of Morgoth, thy death, it ran through the lands like the firestorm of Dagor Bragollach. We wept for thee. I had thought Utumno burned all the tears out of me. I was glad it had not.”

Fingolfin reached out, gathering him close. There were things no words could ever touch.

“And I watched the Doom of the Noldor unfold.” He said into the thick silk of Fingolfin's hair. “I was at Nirnaeth Arnoediad, in the War of Wrath, in Eriador too, and at the Last Alliance.” He drew back, turned his head to Gil-galad. “As I said. The _Ithiledhil_ had settled in the Greenwood long before Oropher came there there. The most they know, or believe they know, is that we were once thralls out of Angband, but we were loyal, we were warriors, and so no other questions were asked.”  
  
“Thou didst see the Doom,” Fëanor echoed. “Now thou wilt see our revenge against those who brought it down upon us.”

“We all will,” Edenel agreed. “All the _Ithiledhil._ ”  
  
“But thou wilt not stay with us.”

“I cannot leave my people,” Edenel said inflexibly. “But I can bring them to Imladris, and to war. We will fight anyhow, under Thranduil's banner, and I would bring them even to New Cuiviénen. They would follow me.”

Fëanor leaned forward. “Good,” he said, softly, but his eyes like backlit gems. “Because I will not let thee go now, uncle.” He slid his hand behind Edenel's neck, his fingers warm and strong, and kissed him. The address might be familial, but his lips were not. He was a lightning-strike straight into the heart. Heat flared into Edenel's veins in response. He had always responded to passion, and of the two, he had ever been more fierce than his twin, the most dominant. Through some sidewise glance of the blood, Fëanor had inherited more of Edenel than Finwë, but it was bootless to compare Fëanor to any-one. He was wholly himself.

“Why did father never speak of thee?” Fëanor wondered, when he drew back.

“Thou knowest why,” Fingolfin answered him. “He knew about us, but he could not be seen to condone it, to admit that he, too, had _sinned_ with his own twin, lest he seem complicit.”

Fëanor tossed his head in contempt. “He was ever too accepting of the damned Valar's laws. He would not truckle to them, but neither would he speak openly against them.”

“Perhaps what happened was meant,” Edenel offered. “Or else none of thee would have been born.”

“And thou wert to be forgotten?” Fingolfin demanded. “There were other Unbegotten in Valinor who must have known of thee. Yet thou wert seen as some kind of shame, never to be spoken of?”

“Of course,” Fëanor said, clipped, furious. “Well, now they will know. Everyone will know.”

“There are those who do know,” Edenel told him quietly. “Coldagnir recognized me and told Vanimórë.”

“Coldagnir is bound to me! And he said naught.”

“I wanted no-one to know. I was going to avoid you, all of you, but then Tindómion joined us when we were returning from Angmar.” His lips bent in a faint smile. “And blood calls to blood.”

“I knew there was something,” Tindómion said. “When thou didst come to me when I was playing the _Noldolantë._ Those battle markings made thy face invisible, yet there was something about thee that reminded me of...Fëanor. I could not put my finger on it, but it was there.”

“Thou didst speak to Vanimórë?” The note of jealousy was clear in Fëanor's voice.

“Vanimórë is like me; he has...endured. Yes, I told him, because I knew he would understand. And he did. He walked with me into the past, though it was his own past also, and filled with horrors, and he did not falter.”

“Thinks't thou _we_ would?”

“I have no doubt you would not,” Edenel said calmly. “But it is not a road I would take you on. You have suffered the Everlasting Dark. That is enough. You felt some of it — of me — when the _Anguish_ spilled over. So did Vanimórë. Strange, that. I had not thought there was such a close link.”

Maglor's alabaster cheeks tinted with a flush. Tindómion, looking at his father, said, “I remember when he was captured, or allowed himself to be captured, when we besieged Barad-dûr. He was so like us. We could not believe a Noldo would be fighting for Sauron.”

“His mother is Noldo, no matter whom his father is.” Fingolfin moved to pour them wine, brushing Edenel's hair with his long fingers as he passed. “Always for him it has been his father who defined him, but he is not only Sauron's son. That is something he should learn. I said he should _see_ Móriel, at least.” He glanced at his half-brother. “Thou doth remember her mother, Ballineth? I think Vanimórë has some of her— ”  
  
“ _Ballineth_ ” Fëanor repeated explosively. “He has none of that sly bitch in him, thank Eru. He is more like...” Then his face changed on an indrawn breath. His eyes widened, burned like stars in his head. “Where is he?”

“I know not.” Fingolfin was staring. “ _Fëanor_?”  
  
“Holy bloody Ilúvatar,” Fëanor enunciated the curse like a threat. _Vanimórë!”_ ”

“What in the Hells, father...?” Maglor began.

“Thou didst call?” Vanimórë asked composedly from the balcony. He was dressed as if he had been up for hours, or had not gone to bed, and raised a mocking brow at their dishevelment, but the smile he sent to Edenel was warm. And it struck Edenel suddenly, seeing them together. He had been like a man almost, but not quite, drowsing, now jolted awake by a dash of icy water. All the men in this room had the look of eagles, born leaders, warriors, drawing the eye among a thousand others. Vanimórë possessed that quality too, a vivid, predatory arrogance bred into the bones and blood, a beauty that _hurt._  
  
“Hast thou seen thy mother?” Fëanor asked, his words almost stumbling over one another.

The smile died. “I have not.” Vanimórë looked at Fingolfin. “I saw her husband, and yes, I look much like him. But I did not see her. There is nothing to see. He said she does not want to wake, does not want to return to the world. And _I_ will not drag her back.”  
  
“And her mother is with her?” Fëanor pressed, bringing the violet eyes back to him.  
  
“Apparently. She and Hendunár do not leave her side, so Irmo tells me.” He folded his arms. “Why?”  
  
“Her mother, Ballineth.” Fëanor's hands curled into fists. “Listen, all of thee. We were friends, once. Intellectual friends, nothing more. She had a sharp mind.” He paced, fine brows drawn over the storm in his eyes. “One day I went to her home, returning some of her work. Her husband had just visited, for the last time, as it turned out. She was...strange. Angry. On edge. She gave me wine.” He turned to his brother. “Thou hadst to use certain herbs to lie with thy wife when thy desire faded, and thou didst use them too, with Rosriel,” he turned to Maglor, who grimaced and nodded either at the memory of the taste or the memory of distaste for their purpose. “We used them at Nost-na-Lothion. They would make a stone feel lust. Ballineth,” he ground the word out. “gave me mulled wine, sweet and strong. I thought there was something amiss, but by then I was already affected. I fucked her.” White fury sheeted across his face. “Then, after, she laughed, defiant, unashamed, said that it was what she had always wanted. _That_ was why we argued so bitterly,” he flung at Fingolfin. “Thou didst ask me why. I lied and said it was a difference of opinion. She used me, but not just for a moments pleasure, I think. She wanted a child. She had spoken of it often, envying me my sons, bemoaning her husband's absences and increasing dearth of desire, as she had every right to. I suppose she wanted the sapless dolt to lie with her when he visited but he had fallen too far under the Valar's curse to oblige her. Then Móriel was born. Ballineth told every-one it was her husband's. Whom would have questioned it? I did not. I had put the whole incident from my mind for what it was: a meaningless tumble forced on me by a drug. The first and last time I have ever been used. I hated her for that, but other things consumed me more. I forgot about her.” His words chopped down like an ax-stroke. It was his way, Edenel thought. _My way, too_. When Fëanor finished with anything, a person, an idea, the ending would be absolute. “She did not tell me that I had a daughter. _How dare she_?”

The room had gone quiet as death. Every eye followed his as Fëanor swung back to face Vanimórë.  
Fëanor said, “Thou art my grandson.”

Vanimórë was still as a tomb effigy. It seemed even his breathing had stopped.  
  
“Sauron may have used up many women to get thee, but what he got, ultimately, was my daughter. And Morgoth would have known that, even if Sauron did not.” Fëanor took three long strides across the room, clamped his hands on Vanimórë's rigid shoulders. “Thou may be like to Hendunár but there is something of me in thee, something of _us_. We have all seen it and not known what we were looking at.”  
  
Edenel had seen that expression before: it was the look of one who receives a mortal wound. Vanimórë's eyes, those impossibly beautiful eyes, were utterly blank. Edenel stepped forward, reaching out, wanting to comfort, as Vanimórë had comforted him, but then, and with a violent twist, Vanimórë wrenched away, gave his back to Fëanor, to all of them.  
“It is supposition, only that.” His voice was cracked ice, his spine lance-straight, but violence coiled in him like the silence before thunder; a god's wrath. “Thou canst not know. And Morgoth would have taunted thee with it, in the Void.”

“He did,” Fingolfin said on a note of discovery. “We saw it, thy mother, but I could not attach any meaning to it. It was just another atrocity. I believed he was showing me Hendunár's death. He was, but that was not all.”  
  
“ _I_ know,” Fëanor said with complete certainty. “It is why thou wert caught in Edenel's _Anguish_. But thou, as a god, thou canst know absolutely.”

The morning sun slid in a glissade of black-and-silver through Vanimòrë's hair as he turned back, curved over the wonderful sweep of his cheekbones, its slanting light illuminating his heritage like a blessing, or was it a curse, wondered Edenel?

“Melkor often spoke of thee, said thy name, when he raped me,” Vanimórë said so conversationally that Edenel felt it like a knife. “He was mad, then, obsessed with thee, and I think,” he tilted his head. “the Silmarils hastened that madness.” His smile came like ice. “Because they were a part of thee, and thou didst hate him. Was that why he kept my poor, damnéd mother alive, because she was Fëanorian, and one way or another, he was going to have someone of thy blood? Is that why— ” White teeth snapped shut. In a whirl of black hair, of power, with a clap of displaced air, he vanished.

 

OooOooO

 


	74. ~ Blood Means Nothing. Blood Means Everything ~

  
  


  
**~ Blood Means Nothing. Blood Means everything ~**

~ “Bring her to me,” he told Irmo. “Bring Ballineth to me.”

“Vanimórë—”

“I do not want to disturb my mother's negligible _rest_ , but I _will_ see Ballineth, Irmo. _Now._ ”

The Vala's hair blew like silver-grey smoke in the cedar-touched air. His eyes, that same colour, searched Vanimórë's.  
“Thou knowest, then.”  
  
“Go — and — bring — her.”  
  
“ _I_ can tell thee what thou wouldst know. Now is not— ” At Vanimórë's furious, impatient movement, Irmo put up a hand. “Thy visit here provoked arguments between Ballineth and Hendunár. She heard him speak to thee of Fingolfin. It is not a good time.”  
  
“Well, forgive me if I do not feel like catering to their family squabbles,” Vanimórë snarled. “Art thou telling me they have the _temerity_ to sit and argue over my mother's sleep?”

“No, Hendunár ensured they argue away from her. Ballineth wants him to leave— ”

“Go and bring her to me,” Vanimórë repeated, enunciating each word carefully.

His heart beat a war-tattoo in his breast as she came. She was no more or less beautiful than any other Noldo female, black haired, dark-eyed. What Fëanor would have seen, what Vanimórë saw, was the intelligence in her, though long-dulled by her sojourn here. A spark quickened in her eyes as they flew over him.

“All I want of thee,” he said into her face. “is to know if Fëanor fathered thy daughter.”

She took a step back as if he had struck her. A sound came from her throat. Then she lifted a hand and opened it, as if giving up her ancient secret. A hollow laugh escaped her lips.  
“So,” she said. “Finally he knows, does he? Well, it took him long enough, and it is too late for him to claim her now, or whatever is left of her.” She straightened. “Vanimórë Gorthaurion, they call thee. Son of Sauron. And my grandson.” The words came out like nails torn from a crucified body. “Yes, then. He fathered Móriel. I wanted a child. Rather, I wanted _his_ child, for he or she, to have his brilliance, his beauty. I wanted _him_ , every woman in Valinor did at one time or another, even if they hated his pride, his arrogance. But he never looked at me with desire. He liked my mind.” Her lips twisted in a sour smile. “I knew that was the way to bring him to my house time and again. That was why I wrote those works that became my fame, because he read them.” Her eyes devoured Vanimórë like a hungry cat's, too much like Dana's. Everything in him recoiled. “Yes, thou doth look rather like Hendunár, but _he_ is in thee, too. I hope that disgusts him, that Sauron's blood melds with his.”

“ _Enough_!” Hendunár was there, stepping to Vanimórë's side. He turned away from her. “Is it true?”  
  
“Apparently,” Vanimórë said coldly. He had to be cold. There was no other way, until he could find time to be alone.  
  
“I wanted a child.” She thumped her belly. “My womb had been empty since my marriage, and rarely did my husband lie with me.”

“And thou didst not tell Fëanor?” Hendunár demanded.

“She was mine! He would have taken her away to death and doom.”  
  
“Dost thou think what happened to her was any better?” Vanimórë asked through his teeth.  
  
She blinked rapidly. “That was not my doing, Gorthaurion.”

“True enough.” He turned from her, caught Hendunár's arm. “Come away from here,” he said. “Thou doth no good, and cannot reach thy wife, and this,” he gestured toward Ballineth, “does her no good either, a soul filled with bitterness. Thou art neither needed here nor appreciated. Let me take thee back to thy people. To Fingolfin.”

“Yes,” Ballineth shouted. “Go, and be gone. My daughter was always too good for thee, and all thou couldst see was Fingolfin. She loved thee and wanted thee, and had the scrapings, the left-overs.”

“I loved her as best I could,” Hendunár threw at her angrily. “How any times must I say this? I have said I was a fool and I was. But she knew there was another, and would have me anyhow. We do not choose whom we love.”  
  
Vanimórë said impatiently, “If my mother were to come back to herself, to this, what comfort would she find? Let her rest and breathe easier. Dost thou not see?” He shook Hendunár gently. “Her mother wants her, and thou thinkest thou should have her out of duty and marriage. Leave her be. Neither of thee want her for _herself_. Thou hast been sitting over her like gor-crows waiting for her to wake, for two Ages and more to make a choice.”

“She is my _daughter_!” In the quiet gardens the woman's voice jarred, almost a scream. “And I will not let her crawl back to a man who did not love her. Thou couldst have taken her to Nargothrond, to safety—”  
  
“Then _treat_ her as a daughter, not a bone of contention,” Vanimórë snapped. “Maybe she hears more than thou knowest.” He took a deep, raw breath, gathering himself, then strode past them down the green path lined with poppies, under the great, sweeping shade of the giant cedars. Behind him Ballineth called out in prohibition.

Móriel as cradled by flowers, black hair spread out around her like silk, her eyes closed. She looked like Vanya. Exactly like her. A torrent of grief and madness ripped through him; he felt himself screaming somewhere far-off, long ago. Then gates clashed shut in his mind with the sound of thunder, the fire-and-steel cadences of his father's voice, twinned with Melkor's star-forged iron, a woman's ringing laughter. Then silence, only the nightingales of Lórien and his own torn breathing.

“Vanimórë?” Hendunár questioned, concernedly.

There was no time for self-pity. How could there ever be? That was the road to darkness and insanity. As if he approached a fire, Vanimórë crossed to his mother, went down on one knee.

 _Come back for thyself._ He could not bring himself to touch the pale purity of her brow. His hand hovered over her closed eyes.  
Behind him, he heard the sounds of a struggle.  
“Keep thy hands from her, demon! _Spawn of Sauron_!”  
  
He rose. “Thou thinks't to insult me, madam? I know whom I am, what I am. Dost thou know what thou art?” He raised a hand. “Because thou couldst not get the man thou didst desire, thou wert forced to drug him.” His brows flicked scornfully. “He shut thee out of his life, rightly. I claim no kinship with thee, not ever will, so do not concern thyself.” He looked around the gardens. “If I could take her away from here, I would. If there were a safe place for her on Middle-earth. Unfortunately there is not.”

“Thou wilt _never_ take her away from me! She is mine! Not thine, and _not his._ ” She tore out of Hendunár's now relaxed grip, threw herself towards her daughter.

Vanimórë held out a hand to Hendunár, who was wiping his hands as if he had touched dirt. “Come with me.”

Hendunár gazed at him. His eyes had lost their Aman-induced lethargy, burned bright as rising stars. The eyes Fingolfin must have looked into and seen something he could love and desire.  
“Thou knowest I cannot. If she ever wakes— ”

“ _If_ she ever does, then thou canst return and see her, but thou art wasting the new life Eru gave thee. She,” he indicated Ballineth, “hates thee. There is too much rancour in the atmosphere, too much bitterness. Come with me, and _live_. If she wakes, I will tell thee. She must wake of her own choice, and to _make_ her own choices.”

“I failed her. Ballineth is right, I _should_ have taken her to Nargothrond. I would not leave the tower. I thought we could hold off the Enemy, and then _he_ came, in a cloud of darkness and fire, with werewolves—” His hands opened and closed. “It was like...it was— ”

“She could have gone without thee. Do not keep taking blame upon thyself. She was her own woman who could make her own decisions. She even married thee knowing thou didst not love her.”

Hendunár nodded once, eyes coming back from old horror.  
“I had to tell her, of course.”  
  
“He should have _loved_ her,” Ballineth grated.

“Do not be a bloody fool,” Vanimórë said wearily. “She could not match Fingolfin, few could. If she made the choice, that, too was hers. Give her credit for knowing what she was doing and the risks it entailed. Hendunár, come.”

OooOooO

He stood on a beach somewhere; it did not matter where.  
  
Grandson of Fëanor. The one thing he could never have guessed, never even thought of. He was so much Sauron's son there was no room for anything else.

No wonder he had been so drawn to Maglor (though whom would not be?) to the magnificent and damned Fëanorions (all the Finwëions) and their legend. No wonder he had refused to break under Melkor and Sauron's power. He thought of Edenel, whom had likewise not broken and was glad, so glad that he had revealed himself and been accepted. But himself...?

He had closed them off, all of them, Elgalad's worried, loving questions, Glorfindel, Fëanor. His mind was a steel ball ringing his thoughts.

Fëanor had not looked at him with distaste, but would he, when he had considered the matter more deeply? Would he feel disgusted that his blood had mixed with Sauron's, as Ballineth hoped?

His breath was tight, fiery in his constricted chest. He scooped up a shell from the sea, pinkish-white, a perfect whorl. His father had told him this pattern was part of life itself, a poetic ratio...

A pattern...Everything lead back to Melkor's feud with Fëanor, wanting something he could never possess himself save by remove. How he must have laughed knowing he had Fëanor's blood, and Sauron too. The others had died or slipped from their hands, but Vanimórë survived...

He laughed, a short, hard sound that held nothing of amusement and tried to imagine himself absorbed into that wild, fierce, jealous, loving family. He could not. He was Sauron's son.

 _Yes,_ whispered the sea, drawing back from the wet sand in a fretwork of foam. _Yes._

OooOooO

Vanimórë had come to deliver, almost deposit, Hendunár in Imladris, then vanished again, but Hendunár was no boy who needed a hand on his back and pretty introductions. He had announced himself and been taken to Fingolfin.

There was no misreading the warmth. They stared at one another, and Fingolfin's face broke into pain. He took two long strides and clasped Hendunár in his arms, held him tightly, not like a lover, but like a king reunited with a beloved subject.  
  
“Sire!”

“I saw thy death,” Fingolfin said. “And its shadow lay over me before I even gave my permission to thee to leave. I should have heeded it.”

“I should not have left thee, my Lord,” Hendunár said. “And I will not.” Emotion shivered in his eyes. He went down on one knee. “I wish I had been with thee at the end.”

Fingolfin laid a hand on his head, sank his hand into the wealth of dark hair like a benediction. Fëanor cocked a brow, then smiled, but it was strained.  
  
Tindómion felt the heat of Gil-galad's shoulder pressing against his as they stood, unspeaking, watching. The night roared in his veins like the wine of gods.

“So where is Vanimórë?” Fëanor demanded of Glorfindel.

“His mind is closed to me. He went to Valinor, now...I know not.” Glorfindel's blue eyes returned from their inward search. “Give him time.”

“ _Time._ ” Fëanor exploded. “He is my grandson, like Tindómion, like Celebrimbor. And he should not be alone, now.”

Maglor's face was white as Taniquetil's crown, closed as an iron door.  
“I should have known,” he said almost under his breath. Tindómion went to his side, slid an arm about his waist.

“That is not how he defines himself, and thou must realize that.”

“Then, _tell_ me, Glorfindel, thou knowest him better than anyone!”

“What dost thou think? He was raised, formed, _forged_ as Sauron's son and slave. One cannot simply throw at his head that he is as much Fëanorion and expect him to accept it.” Glorfindel paced to the long window. “Anyhow, like it or no, he _is_ Sauron's son.”

Fëanor slammed a hand down on the table. “Yes, the one who tortured Celebrimbor, destroyed Finrod. Yes. I _know._ ” He  
whirled on Hendunár, who rose, stared at him. “Tell me what happened in Lórien.”

“And he was right, I believe, Sire,” Hendunár ended, head held high, back lance-straight. “Móriel will not come back for her mother, or for me. She must come back of her own volition. For herself.”  
  
“So thou didst love my brother?” Fëanor surveyed the man who did not flinch under the battery of eyes. Tindómion saw the generosity, the mouth ready to curve into smiles or laughter, the dark, striking beauty of him.

“Whom would not, Sire?” Hendunár rejoined, colour on his cheeks, but his eyes unblinking, hard as arrow-bolts.

“Fëanor,” Fingolfin snapped. “Do not tease him.”  
  
“Actually, I was not.” The unexpected smile was warm. “So, Ballineth claims her, does she? She would. But we will see, when Móriel makes her choice.” He turned back to Glorfindel. “Vanimórë considers himself tainted by his father's blood.”

“If Sauron had been a father to him, which is difficult to imagine, I grant thee, perhaps he would not. He might have been a different man entirely,” Glorfindel said. “And in which case the history of this world might be quite different. Probably worse. Vanimórë always ensures he knows everything from the greatest to the least. He would not have left the Sammath Naur in Orodruin unguarded as Sauron did. Fortunately, he swears he never had any interest in the One Ring and considered it a mistake, and Sauron sent him out of Mordor during the War. For which I am grateful. So, as it is, yes, he truly does.”

“The way he has fought, survived, surpassed his slavery, that, nephew, is _my_ blood,” Fëanor stated. “Morgoth used him, Sauron raped him, subjected him to horrors. I want to give him back his _life._ ”

“Thou canst not,” Vanimórë said behind him. “It has been lived. It cannot be repealed. It is mine.” He glanced at Glorfindel. “And thou art quite right. I would not have left the Sammath Naur unguarded. Had my father asked my opinion on the matter. He did not.”

They all turned. Fëanor took one step forward, but did not make the mistake of touching him, though his eyes fixed upon the blazing violet ones. They had all been remiss, Tindómion thought, and blind, mentally placing Vanimórë as Sauron's son, remarkable, perilous, gorgeous, but _other_ , and Vanimórë had deliberately underscored that impression, held himself aloof.

“We are not needed here,” Gil-galad murmured to Tindómion. “Come.”

Maglor slanted him a look. “I will stay.” He kissed Tindómion's mouth. “Do not worry.” But his mind was a cauldron of fire and darkness. “I will see thee shortly.”

“Very well. I will wait for thee.” Tindómion paused beside Vanimórë, placed a hand on the rigid arm, and said, “Thou didst save my father's life. Thou knowest thou hast my acceptance, if thou needest it.” But Vanimórë needed no-one's acceptance, he thought. Or did he, underneath that glamorous poise? Perhaps no-one had ever needed it more.

Outside the doors, and only just beyond view of any-one, Gil-galad pushed Tindómion hard against the wall. The kiss was a starving, furious thing. His hands slipped under the silk robe, over Tindómion's shoulders.  
“Come,” he breathed.

Through the firestorm that re-ignited a path to his loins, Tindómion ground out, “Why didst thou have to come to me through Edenel?”  
  
Those wonderful diamond-blue eyes narrowed as Gil-galad drew back. “Because I knew thou wouldst not refuse _him._ ”

“ _I would not have refused thee_ hadst thou come to me like that.” Tindómion twisted away. “Do not think I hold any regret for last night. Hells, how could I? I rejoice in it! But was it _us_ , or Edenel?”

“It was all of us, Istelion.” Then he flashed: “ _What_ art thou waiting for? For me to die, to become just a memory again, something _manageable?_ I am not going to die! The way it was last night is how I wish it to be between us, and forever.” One hand dropped lower. “Oh, I think it was _us,_ Istelion.” he smiled as he felt the hardness. “Dost thou not? Edenel was there certainly, but _we_ were the catalyst that brought the _Anguish_ down. But I will leave thee to think about it.” Then he whirled in a flood of black hair and stormed away, turning to add, with a feral flash of white teeth. “How long wilt thou need? Another Age?”

OooOooO

“My blood runs in thy veins, Vanimórë,” Fëanor said like a challenge. “Thou canst not turn away from it.”

“I have no intention,” Vanimórë said, cold and blank to absorb Fëanor's irresistible heat. “of doing that, but it makes no difference to what I am.”

“And what art thou?” Fingolfin asked softly.

“A mongrel half-blood, like Lúthien, born of two beings whom should never have mated or brought forth children.”

Fëanor's lip curled. “I do not disagree that Maia and Elf should not mate, not that I care either way, but _thou_ art no Lúthien. Sauron made thee for a reason, and I do not believe it was just to have one of Fëanorion blood under his sway.” He stepped closer, his eyes sparkling over Vanimórë's face. “That is one reason, not the only one.”

“No, perhaps not. I was commander of his armies.”

“A weapon of the gods,” Fingolfin said.

Vanimórë looked at him sharply. “Not a very effective one, then.”

“Art thou not? Didst thou not outlast Sauron, outface the Valar, and wilt thou not stand against Morgoth and Sauron too, at the end?”

“Oh, yes, I will do that.” Vanimórë was swept by a wave of soul-weariness so deep he almost staggered. He scraped at reserves. “If I have any purpose at all, it is that.”  
  
“Vanimórë.” Fëanor reached for him. Vanimórë stepped back, both hands raised, smiled a warning.

Diamond eyes flashed.  
“Even gods may grow tired. Thinks't thou I cannot see it, that we do not know what it is like to push oneself on and on, not foreseeing any end to the fight?”

“I know thou dost.”

“But we did have an ending. Most of us.” Fëanor cast a glance at Maglor, standing so very still. “Thou hast never had respite. Rest a while with us.”

“I cannot afford to rest.” I do not know how to. Leave me alone. Canst thou not see? She was right, Ballineth was right. If there was any bloodline I could have chosen to belong to, it was thine, but not with my father's blood thick in my veins; ichor of the Dark.  
_Tell him,_ he challenged Maglor. _Tell him what I did to thee; that he will never forgive._

Maglor blazed back: _I will never tell him!_

“I am honoured thou wouldst accept me,” he said formally, bowing. “I will work with thee, fight with thee, and of a surety I respect thee. But too much lies between our blood for me to cross over.”

He turned on his heel, heard Glorfindel snap: “Fëanor, leave him.” But Fëanor did not. Vanimórë whirled to face him, and they clashed, breast-to-breast.  
  
“Thou art _not_ walking away!”

“Art thou proud of thy sons, Fëanor?” Vanimórë lowered his voice. “Thy grandsons? I know thou art.”

“What has...? Yes. They swore twice upon an oath that I _knew_ could not be fulfilled. Yet there was no other way. There was no appeal.” He shone like silver fire. “And never would I — any of us — have _appealed_ to the Valar! I lay an impossible task upon them, and they did not balk, not though even their own kin turned against them at times, not though at the end, they had nothing but death and madness and grief, and only one remained. And my grandsons? Yes, A thousand times, yes. I am _proud._

Vanimórë nodded contemplatively. “I can give thee nothing to be proud of. Thy son Maedhros, he knows the exquisite cruelties of Angband, of Morgoth, of my father. I do not think Sauron would have hung him from Thangorodrim — too valuable, but Morgoth's mind was crumbling by then, and he would not be defied, even by my father. What he could not conquer, he would destroy. But there are things that leave their mark on the soul more surely than physical pain, and often run alongside it. Thinks't thou I survived because I was _courageous,_ ” He twisted the word into mockery. “No. Just stubborn, and terrified of being sent into the Void myself if I died.” Their breaths mingled, so close were they. “Dids't thou know I had a sister once, a twin? Yes? I killed her. Either that or see her raped and torn apart by Melkor.” He snapped his hands out as Fëanor's would have caught him. “ _No._ ” Leave me alone. “What Dana said was true. Thou didst hear her. It was true. I was fucked by orcs and Fell-wolves, and made to service them also. Thou doth not want to claim kinship with me, Fëanor. I am not the Blood of Fire, I am of the Dark. I am _nothing._ ” And will become Nothing, as Dana prophesied.  
  
There was a terrible silence, the air scorched febrile by his words. Then Fëanor's face gentled, and it almost broke Vanimórë's iron control. He could imagine Fëanor looking at his sons thus.  
“Eru chose thee.”

“Eru!” Vanimórë quelled an impulse to spit. “The same Eru who watched abomination after abomination fall on his children, First and Secondborn alike, aided and abetted by the Ainur, his _chosen_ and never lifted a finger _until I forced the issue_? Speak not to me of Eru. Eru is not infallible.”

“Then do not thou speak to me of Dana's words, who sought only to break thee,” Fëanor whispered like the lick of fire. “But she mistook her mark. None of those things matter to me, Vanimórë, _none_ of them.” Fëanor cupped his long hands like the curved wings of a bird, slowly raising them to Vanimórë's face. “Thou art fire, and steel, and untarnished. And _I_ choose thee.”

Vanimórë jerked his head away, whipping round, away. _Leave me alone._

He would endure anything, accept anything, but not pity. Never that.  
  


OooOooO

Barad-dûr's rubble spread league upon league, massive shaped boulders, still carrying the echo of sorcery, scattered across the ash of Gorgoroth. Vanimórë felt the memories in the black stone as he traced his fingers over it. Sauron had poured his power into every particle of the tower. Vanimórë had witnessed its building, knew that he could raise it again if he wished. He had no desire to. Let Mordor slumber now. The land would never forget the touch of its Overlord and none would ever dwell there. Let it become a memory.

Orodruin brooded. Half its cone had been blown away when the One Ring was cast into the fire, but it was still an active volcano, temporarily quiet. The smell of ash was so familiar to him, he almost felt like he had come home. But where was home? Not Tol-in-Gaurhoth, Angband or Mordor. He had felt as if Sud Sicanna was for a time, until Dana caused it to grate against his skin like sandpaper.

He reached out, seeking her, but blackness swallowed his vision. He frowned, then shrugged the puzzle away. She could wait. He could only be glad she was not here, clawing at him with her spite and vanity. Those brave, beautiful boys of his had sent her away, wounded. He was proud of them, bemused by their loyalty, just as he was bewildered by Elgalad's love, but there came a point where it was easier to accept it. It would wither in time. Everything did.

A thought, an eyeblink took him to the restless northern seas, to an island where more proud stones were tumbled. Only one tower still half-stood against the whip of time, a testament to the craft that has raised it. Once it had been Himring, from whence Maedhros had looked across Ard Galen to stare Angband in its black, black eye. Maedhros. His uncle? No. His thoughts ran up against a wall of iron. Blood meant nothing.

Blood meant _everything._

He sank down on the damp stonework.

_I wish I had known, then._

His eyes burned, but he did not know if he were capable of producing tears anymore. Life had burned them dry. He thought upon his childhood fantasies, desperately spun to give his sister hope as much as himself, of those beautiful, star-eyed warriors riding into Tol-in-Gaurhoth, driving back the clinging shadows, claiming him and Vanya as their own.  
A fantasy, but one with an element of truth in it. And now it was too late. It had been too late even then, as Melkor and Sauron plotted the downfall and destruction of the Noldor, one prince after the other. Fëanor had been hundreds of years dead when Vanimórë was born, and Fingolfin had followed him, the Long Peace broken by the fires of the Dagor Bragollach. Vanimórë and Vanya had been born out of those fires, already lost. Yet even through death, the Fëanorion blood had reached out. Vanimórë's first friend, first teacher, Valóron, had been a warrior of Maedhros' house.

_If I had known..._

But what could he have done? He could never have escaped Angband. And it was all moot, now. He had not known, and it had always been too late.

He tasted loneliness, the lack of some-one to talk to. He could not pour out his heart to Elgalad, whom he cherished, nor to Glorfindel. There was no-one whom had been there, except his father. Raw laughter erupted in his throat. The salt wind tore it away,

 _The only person I could ever speak to. How ironic. Oh, father._  
  
Gulls whirled over his head. Their harsh calls mocked him. _Father. Grandfather._ Hahahah.

OooOooO

“You must let him go, Fëanor,” Edenel said. “At least for now. It is different for me. I am Unbegotten; he is the son of rape with Sauron as his sire. And he will not stand for pity.”

“It is not pity!” Fëanor flung up his hands. “I honour him, and thou.”

“He does not want that; neither do I. We survived, Fëanor. Others did not. What we mostly feel, is guilt that we did not die.”  
  
Fëanor bit back the words on his tongue, and considered Edenel — and Maedhros. The only guilt he himself had ever experienced was in dying, knowing that he was leaving his sons to their doom-ridden fate. The guilt of a survivor?  
“Why?” he asked, keeping his frustrated anger from the word.  
  
“Truly?” Edenel shook his head, his eyes distant. “We think, perhaps, that there is something wrong with us that we did not die, that some part of us must have _enjoyed_ the brutalities, lived to feel more of them.”

Fingolfin tendered them wine. He curved a hand down through Edenel's hair to his waist. “Even if that were true, would it negate thy courage, thine endurance?” he asked. “There are those whom enjoy pain, I know.” Fëanor, somewhat startled, stared at him. “But there is a difference between such pleasures and atrocity visited on one day after day, year after year, a difference between a willing participant and an unwilling victim. What was done to thee, uncle, what was done to him. To thee,” he turned to Maglor. “To Maedhros. To survive that and to live is courage of the highest order.” He put his own wineglass down. “Now, I must speak to Gil-galad. Hendunár, come. We must get thee settled. I know thou didst serve Finrod, but I am claiming thee as one of mine. As thou always should have been.”  
  
“I must go, also, father.” Maglor's voice sounded muted, black brows drawn hard over his eyes. “We all have much to think on.”

“And I,” Edenel said. “We will speak later.”

Fëanor cast himself into a chair, looked up at Glorfindel.  
“Will he — and I realize this will sound idiotic; he is a god, after all — do anything?” he demanded.

“To himself? No,” Glorfindel said shortly. “He would consider that weak. But he is not gong to run into thine arms, either.”

“Does he seriously believe anything that happened to him matters to me? He is my grandson, and he thinks _I_ would feel shame for that? Ashamed of him?” He could not sit still, he rose again. “No, I am not obtuse. I _do_ understand, a little, but the very fact that he would think it tells me what he is. He would strangle himself with honour.”

“Oh yes, rather than allow the brush of his sleeve to tarnish thee, he would.”

“Tarnish me? Does he know anything about me?” Fëanor laughed savagely. “How do I reach him, Glorfindel? Thou knowest him better than any.”  
  
“And yet I do not,” Glorfindel refuted. “I see what he wants me — us — to see. I am not sure if anyone has ever seen the true Vanimórë. And yet nothing of what he shows us is a lie. It is a construct. How to reach him? Well, he wants thee. I am sure thou hast realized that Edenel's _Anguish_ broke through Dana's curse.”

“Good. Yes, that was incredibly powerful. I had never heard or considered such a thing, and yet it is so poetic, so perfect...” His voice trailed off, heat prickling through his veins at the thought. The _Anguish_ had swallowed him like a wrecking storm, but he had not been drowned. He had _reveled_ in it even alone, as he had been. It was something he had not experienced — but he would.  
“Well, he has to touch me if he wants me.”

“Sex, to him, is not the same thing as claiming blood-kinship. It is not intimate, I think, not to Vanimórë. Although...I do not know how deep Dana's words touched him. Or Varda's. Or Ballineth's.”  
  
Fury opened its jaws, burned in Fëanor's blood. “ _Them._ Does he not know they are simply poison? And what did Varda say, and when?”

“We were in Valinor, not so long ago. I was enraged at what happened to Eärendil. We went to Ilmarin. What did she say? I will quote it: 'Everything will be taken from thee in the end. Thy sister, thy mother, they do not even remember thee, _whore._ And when the blond slut has died, no-one will! Eru uses thee; art thou too stupid to comprehend? Looking for _love_ all thy life, but thou _knowest_ thou hast never deserved it, and will never have it. Thy beloved Elgalad feels only gratitude toward thee and is bound by a sense of duty. He had nothing else, even as thy sister did not.'”  
  
“Oh, they are racking up a debt, and it will be wonderful to see them pay.” Fëanor took a steadying breath. “But thou thinks't he listens? Believes it?”

“Consciously, no. Subconsciously, I think it simply reaffirms what he thinks of himself.”

“Is he utterly blind to what he is?” Fëanor asked incredulously.

“He has the beauty of a Fëanorion,” Glorfindel said, smiling a little. “And is the most peerless all-round warrior I have ever seen. He is charming, sensual, generous, kind, and ruthless as Sauron when he wants to be. He is also,” he added, and the smile deepened as at a memory. “a superlative lover. And yes, he thinks of himself as worthless except for his battle-skills, which he earned and feels comfortable with. He thinks, and these are his own words, that he is a monster.”

It was hardly credible, but then Fëanor knew he had never been a man who knew self-doubt, or at least had been able to bury it under utter certitude. And madness, at the end.  
“Then I — we — his family must make him see what he truly is. When he walked into the feast, beautiful as a vision out of the past, like a king...I knew there was _something._ When I kissed his mouth, I knew, even though he did not respond.”

“That must have been a leveller,” Glorfindel commented dryly. “His non-response.”

Fëanor laughed at him. “In fact, I have been very temperate. I was not always subtle, and never gentle.” He caught Glorfindel's chin in his hand, felt the heat flash under his skin. “Was I? But, save for once or twice, I was always particular. There is no satisfaction in dutiful sex, nor fucking for the sake of it. I want only the _best._ ”

“Hast thou told Vanimórë that?”  
  
“I did. I said only a fool would not want him. But he needs more than just words.”

“He needs a few thousand years of thee,” Glorfindel agreed. “Pouring love into him as thou didst into thy sons so that they never looked away from thee, never doubted themselves even for a moment. At least not then. Perhaps it would be better if they had. Thou hast thy faults, Fëanor, but lack of generosity is not one of them.”

“He can have it.”

“If he would accept it. Because he needs it; he is walking a thin line.”

“Yes. He is dangerous. But he is ours. Thou wilt see, Glorfindel.” Fëanor crooked an arm about his neck affectionately, kissed his cheek. “ He will never follow Sauron's path, nor Melkor's. It would be beneath him. He belongs to _us._ ”

“And so does his sister, wherever she is.”

Fëanor said softly, “Yes, where is she? Did he think to disgust me? Would I not have done the same? Or one of my sons, and gladly?”

“I do not know where she is, and Vanimórë's mind — Morgoth tampered with it long ago. He thinks she is in Lórien. She is not. He cannot think of her too closely. Whatever Morgoth set there in his soul is too strong.”

“In the Void?”

“It is possible I suppose, and the most likely explanation. But he must find out for himself. It is too close to the very soul of him.” Glorfindel drained the last of his wine. “She was his salvation. He learned to love unselfishly, and nothing that was done to him could knock it out of him. Yet because of her he helped Dana back into this world. He is gentle with women, perhaps too gentle.”

“Most of us are.” Fëanor shrugged, moving away. “Though he has not had the best of luck with them.”  
  
“He likes Fanari. Oh, not in that way. He likes her because she asks nothing of him. And because she is kind.”  
  
“I like her myself.” He picked up an amber paperweight, examined it. “Yes, she is kind, And forgiving. I am not unaware of how much she had to forgive Maglor for.” His eyes rose to meet Glorfindel's. “He says he was out of his mind, and I believe it. I know that does not negate his actions. I know what I felt like when Ballineth drugged me, though I was the one who took her because I was the man. I do not condone what my son did.”  
  
“Underneath all his pain, his rage, his madness, he did know her, at least for an instant,” Glorfindel told him. “But she forgave him. She had a long time to forgive. I think she always knew that any hate would infect her love for Tindómion, and she would not allow that to happen.”

“She raised a magnificent son.” Fëanor said, tracing, with his mind, and with great pleasure, the proud, stern lines of his grandson's face and body. “As for my daughter... I never foresaw one. I dreamed all my sons before they were born, before I ever knew Nerdanel. Marriage was not a thing I considered before that, knowing where my desires lay. But a daughter I did not see. Is there nothing we can do for Móriel?”

Glorfindel frowned. “It might do more harm than good to force her into awakening, although I find it odd and unsettling that she is not healed at all. Others have been. Insofar as they can ever heal.”

“Yes.” Fëanor pushed down the anger. This time, _this_ time, he would tend it as he had his forge-fires. It would not be wasted as it had been before, devouring his sons and all those he loved in its wake, rising again, through hundreds of years to burn even love to ashes.  
“But does she feel anything? Is she at least at peace?”  
  
“I feel that she is, yes.”

“I hate waiting.” Fëanor was surprised by how mild his voice sounded in his own ears. “But I know that I must. I am not risking my sons again, I am not risking any of thee.”

“We are going to war against the some of the Valar, or what is left of them, and Morgoth and his legions,” Glorfindel said. “There will be a _little_ risk, Fëanor.”

“I know that. And we will win. We have no choice. Morgoth is coming for us, for _my grandson_ , Vanimórë, for all the Noldor. For the Earth itself. And we will be waiting for them.” He felt the tang of the oncoming storm like ozone in the air — and _exulted_.

OooOooO


	75. ~ Like A High, Cold Cloud Descending ~

  
  


**~ Like A High, Cold Cloud Descending ~**

  


~ “Father.”

Maglor felt his son's hand on his arm and turned to him from the clouds of the deep past. He said nothing as Tindómion guided him to his chambers.  
  
“I have to bathe,” Tindómion threw aside his house-robe. His flesh was mottled with bruises. He looked as if he had been in battle. Maglor envied him.  
“Come and sit with me.”

The scent of lemon-balm and lavender misted the air as Tindómion briskly washed and dried himself, then dressed. He sat with something of a wince, combing his wet hair as Maglor sipped at his wine.

“Tell me.”

“Thou hast lived all my life,” Maglor said. “Do thou tell me.”

Tindómion put down his comb, moved closer to his father. His body burned like a comforting fire.  
“There was a dream,” he murmured. “Long before thy capture by Sauron. In it, thou wert walking in Mordor, I think, although then it did not even exist, or if it did, Sauron had not yet come there. Thou didst see some-one and thought it was Fëanor, but with violet eyes...” Maglor, muscles knotted rigid, nodded. “ And in Barad-dûr thou wert clinging to thoughts of thy father as a last bastion against destruction.” Tindómion closed his eyes. “Then Vanimórë came. He was himself, but also Fëanor to thee. Thou didst feel thy blood within him. And responded to it.”

“Dost thou think that makes me feel any better?” Maglor came to his feet sharply. “Thou knowest my...denial of my feeling for my father.”

“Of course.”  
  
“But thou doth not comprehend it, not now?”

Tindómion paused before he answered. “Not entirely,” he acknowledged.

“I thought it was something thou hadst not seen. One of the few things. The power of the Valar, or what they had then, I suppose.” He walked from one end of the chamber to the other. “It happened not long after father...kissed me, in Valinor.” So long ago, and it might have been yesterday. “I went out hunting. I needed to be alone for a while, just to _think._ I was following a stream through some woods when I saw some-one bathing. A man, naked. I did not know him when he turned and saw me.” Distaste shuddered through him. “He smiled, saying nothing and walked out of the water toward me. He was beautiful, yes, but something about him seemed _wrong_. He tried, very clumsily, to seduce me. I ignored him, and then I was forced to tell him, quite bluntly, to cease. He changed then, and I realized why he had seemed so wrong, quite apart from the fact that such relations were against the Law.” He put his hand to his mouth, feeling nauseated. “It was Mandos. He had tried, without any skill at all, to trap me, no doubt thinking I was ripe for any casual fuck! and then he proceeded to tell me how sick, how disgusting, how filthy, was my desire for my father. I had not imagined he would even know such words, or have such an imagination, speaking of slime and shit, and _sin._ ”

Tindómion came to his back, slid his arms around him, locked them.  
  
“I told him — for how could I lie? — that his words said more about him than me.” His lips curled. “I was never afraid of the Valar; father taught us not to be. Then I walked away. But what he had said stayed with me. Always. His words smeared the passion and beauty I felt with filth. I am sure that Mandos boxed this into my mind so that even father could not see it, nor thou. And in truth I wanted no-one to see it.”

“That is despicable!” Tindómion drew away, came round to face his father. “What does it matter to them whom we desire, whom we love? If it feels right to us, it is not wrong for _us_. And damn the rest!”

Maglor smiled at his son with difficulty, loving his defiance which might have been Fëanor's own.  
“I was so ashamed, so sick I could not even talk to my brothers, and especially not my father. And it has dogged me all these years. In Barad-dûr...I let myself go, let myself feel all the desire I had suppressed. And yes, I was giving myself partly to my father, but to Vanimórë also. This was _after_ he drew me back from my half-death. There were weeks before he released me when I was recovering. I was more sane then. I knew he was not father, but it _felt_ like him, or how I imagined he would feel. Hells...!” he exploded. “The beauty of him, of Vanimórë, the _passion_. I tried to resist, but I was starving, and he...he was too, I think.” No, he knew. “ Neither of us could get enough. But I could not forgive him for forcing my hand, for treating me, my choices as nothing at the beginning. I hated...and...I _wanted._ Even still, despite what he had done to me. I _wanted._ ”

Tindómion drew him close. “He was wrong to force thee, but any of us would have done the same, anything to being thee back. And he is Fëanorion. How could he not? And so art thou. How couldst thou resist him?”

“Thou wouldst excuse him?”

“For the action, no. The intent behind it, yes. I love thee. I spent centuries hating thee and wanting to love thee, but I could not have borne losing thee, thy dreams, thy presence in my soul.”

Maglor's heart twisted, cracked. He did not deserve Tindómion's love, so fierce, so fine.

“Thou dost,” his son said, and kissed him full on the lips, deep and hard. Maglor felt it as a red-fire path to his groin. Tindómion smiled into his mouth, and murmured, “Dost thou feel _that_ was wrong, unclean?”  
  
No...but, still Mandos' ugly, gut-twisting diatribe clung to the deepest parts of his soul like a snail-trail in a tree crevice. He leaned his brow against his son's.  
“I could never think anything about thee is wrong.”

“But thou wilt think something in thyself is? What about Fingolfin?”

“Fingolfin...” Maglor drew away. “After father died...I could not help myself. We reached out to him through one another, but he was not a substitute, or not entirely. He is too beautiful, too _himself_ to stand in for any-one. And yes, I admit, I felt guilt, but by then the long madness had begun. It began the very moment father died. Then Maedhros was...taken. I needed _something_. ”

“I wish thou wouldst let this shame go, father. There was Nost na Lothion...”

“Another kind of madness. And such a _relief._ ” He took a mouthful of wine. “Just as there was such relief in surrendering to Vanimórë. But as myself, soberly myself, still I withhold. I cannot seem to scrape the guilt off me. And I hate it. Because I love them, father, Fingolfin. And I want them.”

“And Vanimórë?”

A wrench of colliding emotions shook Maglor, proud hate raising its head against a usage he had tried to fight and, weakened by torment, could not, the absolute glory of pleasure, his own confusion at _feeling_ his father's touch and possession while knowing it was not Fëanor. His own frantic, violent responses later, trapped in Barad-dûr, waiting every evening for Vanimórë to return, the sex like battle...like fury.

“Father would love him. But if he knew...? And I cannot tell him. We need Vanimórë in this war and the great one yet to come. He is a god, father is not. I dare not let them clash. And I am _jealous_.” He ended with a hard laugh.  
  
“Thou hast nothing to be jealous of.” Tindómion cupped his face.

“It is a childish reaction, and one I loathe,” Maglor said, disgusted with himself. “Vanimórë has had _nothing_ save cruelty, violence, war, slavery, and my father would give him love, and yes, I am jealous. I will not regard it. Yet I cannot forgive him.”  
  
Tindómion's silver eyes were troubled, but he said, “It was thou he forced, not me, and so it is for thee to forgive or not. I do not know that I could in thy place.”

“Thou canst understand why I cannot tell father, ever?”

“Yes, I do see that.” Tindómion embraced him. “I do not know Fëanor even half so well as thee, but I can imagine what his reaction might be.”

“I thank thee.” Maglor touched his face. “So, tell me, why art thou not with Gil-galad?”

His son's eyes flamed silver before long lashes dropped to cover them. A half-smile bent his mouth.  
“Edenel brought him to me last night. I asked him why he must go through another to have me.”

Maglor frowned. “Does it matter? And Edenel...dost thou regret it?”

“Hells, no. That man has been through more pain than I can imagine. Only the other _Ithiledhil_ and Vanimórë could comprehend it. But I believe my question was a valid one.”

“Did it matter? Why does it matter?”  
  
“To me...yes. I want... _Hells_ , I want him to come to me and take me just as savagely and as gloriously as it was last night, with no-one between us. He has never truly shown me that he wanted me,” he added wryly. “save when the opportunity arose. Such as last night. Even at times when we were alone. And I will not accept less than all. There will be no half-measures.”  
  
“Thou hast said thyself that thou didst ever hold back, that thou didst even leave him, for years,” Maglor said, unbelieving. His son was as confused as he was, but it was strangely comforting. “Art thou still afraid of falling out of love with him?”

“No.” Tindómion smiled again, luxurious. “No. Not after this time we have spent together, not after last night. I will never cease wanting him, being excited by him. But I am terrified of losing him. Is that cowardly? I still wake up from dreams of seeing him dead. All that beauty, that valour, gone...I have to go to him, make some excuse to just _see_ him.”  
  
“It is not cowardly,” Maglor's throat was tight. “I feel just the same, with my father, my brothers, Fingolfin, Fingon...so many.” He wondered if this were another reason for his mental distancing of himself from his own family, quite apart from the Ages that separated them. It was not lack of love, because that loved consumed him day and night, but terror that something far too impossible to be true could be ripped away, that this was a dream he could awaken from at any moment and find himself in some lonely place, still mad, or back in Barad-dûr, Sauron's mind and hands engaged in their work of breaking him.

“It does not seem real, at times,” he whispered. “ _Is it_? I used to have dreams...they were so vivid. Then I would wake...”

“I have lived all through it, father, as hast thou. Yes, it is real, although I know. I know.” His son's hands were reassuring, loving. “It is real.”  
  
Everything was real. And it could all (again) be taken away.

OooOooO

Fingolfin caught up with Edenel, smiled at him, and said warmly, loving him, respecting him beyond all measure: “Uncle. Wouldst thou prefer to be alone?”

“Never from you, or any of you,” Edenel said. “But I must speak to my companions, those here and those in the Wood, mind-to-mind. We were all we had, and there can be no separation.”  
  
“Of course not. I would not want there to be.”  
  
“But I am here for you, blood, bone, and soul.”  
  
“And we are thine, blood, bone, and soul.” It was an ancient oath.

“Do not worry about me, beautiful Fingolfin.” Edenel caressed his face, light, burning. “I am so proud of thee. Of all of thee. But think of Vanimórë.”

“I am.” He had seen how near to breaking Vanimórë was, and it had been impossibly be painful to watch, for that was not a man who broke.

“He will come back. But it will be a very long road.”

“Yet he is ours, and we are his, as much as thou art.”

“And believe me, he wants to be. As much as he has ever wanted anything in his life, I think.” Edenel's white eyes filled with shadows like clouds moving over snow. “He is a man of great compassion and great love, but he cannot forgive himself for being Sauron's son.”

“How is that his fault?” demanded Fingolfin.

“Slavery does...strange thing to our minds, Fingolfin. I do not know if the crooks and bends can ever be straightened. Not from him. Not from me.” He dropped a kiss on Fingolfin's cheek. “Now I must go.”

Fingolfin watched him leave, walking with the long, vigorous stride that might have known no agony, no slavery (save that it had) then sought out his grandson.

Gil-galad was bathing. Fingolfin settled himself to wait until he came from the chamber, a towel wrapped around his slim waist, hair damp.  
“I will give him up,” he flashed, striding into his bedroom. His white skin showed an impressive array of bruises. What must it be like, the _Anguish_? Fingolfin had only caught the edge of it, but that had been enough to bring him to gasping orgasm.

“Wouldst thou like to speak of it?” he asked.

“He is playing,” Gil-galad said decidedly, glinting like naked steel. “Asking me why I must needs come to him through Edenel. As if it mattered!”

“I am glad for Edenel that he chose the both of thee.” And he was. Though what if Edenel had come to Fingolfin or Fëanor? But then there would have been no triad of passion. His half-brother talked to him now from behind a wall of glass, as if that night of the Winter Solstice had never occurred. Yet Fingolfin did not regret his actions in the least. He remembered it with a sense of disbelief and a pure, sexual frisson. A wild, wild, night when _he_ had been the dominant one. Not that he thought it signified any more. Give or take, it was the same: magnificent. He had just wanted to experience it with Fëanor under him, demanding _more._

_And thou didst, my beautiful half-brother._ He smiled.

“Edenel.” The glittering, frustrated amusement slipped from Gil-galad's face. “I am glad, too, that he has come back to us. But words cannot begin to touch the pain I felt...thou didst feel it also.”

“I felt it, yes. He has gone to speak with those of his people he brought from the Wood.”

“And Vanimórë?”

“Edenel says he will come back, but it will not be an easy path. How could it be?”

“If I had only known back then, in Mordor.” He shook his head. “Though what difference would it have made? I could have done nothing for him. I died. But there was Elrond...”  
  
Fingolfin rose and took his grandson's hair into long, glossy hanks, braiding it.  
“All we can do is go on from here. We did not know. Vanimórë is fighting with us, he will come back. He will be close to us.”  
  
“Let us hope so. I knew from Glorfindel what he endured, but what could any of us do then, in the midst of a war? Now we have time.”

“And time, also for the intransigent Tindómion?” Fingolfin murmured, a smile in his words.

“Let him play his damned games,” Gil-galad declared, and suddenly laughed. “Oh, Hells, he is truly superb. I cannot even raise the proper anger. Or not now. I will. It is mostly a game. Not quite. I know he fears to lose me, as I fear to lose him. And I have not lived an Age and more as he has without him. The Void was...not the same.”

Fingolfin covered the wide shoulders with his hands. “I know.” Timeless. Terrible. A constant battle against dissolution.

“So we dance the dance,” Gil-galad said, turning his lovely head. “As dost thou.”

“Yes,” Fingolfin agreed. “As do I.”  
  


OooOooO

Elgalad composed his face into one Vanimórë would recognise: loving, warm, concerned – and indeed it was no lie — and came to his feet as Vanimórë walked into the room. He went straight into the strong arms before they could push him away, pouring love into the man he adored, and truly did, though his vow, his self-appointed task was to hide himself, conceal until the time was right, and to watch Vanimórë suffer, over and over. He felt a shudder, then his embrace was returned with a sigh.

“Thou knowest?”

“The n-news flew through Imladris.”

“Forgive me if I cannot speak of it. Yet.”

“I love thee,” Elgalad asserted. “And I am h-here for thee.”  
  
“I know, and I thank thee, my dear. And so are they. And it is too much for me to encompass.” He pulled away, but gently. “I think I will sleep.”

Yes, thou art exhausted, and not by any physical labour, but by thousands of years of pain.  
“Then sleep,” he said simply. “I w-will watch over thee.”

And so he did. Through the nightmares that shook Vanimórë into near-wakefulness, he sat, his hand in the thick mane of hair, murmuring words of comfort to one who could not be comforted.  
  
Coldganir came to the door, bronze eye burning, but halted, his expression shivering into distress.

_Thou wilt not wake him,_ Elgalad said. _I have ensured he will sleep. Come in._

_Is there nothing we can do?_ He stepped closer, looking down at Vanimórë. Even steeped in unconsciousness there was a poise, a steel to him that would not relax. Thus he had slept, Elgalad knew, under Sauron's eye, forcing composure into his very bones to show no vulnerability.

_Nothing. Thou knowest it. And I like it no better than thou. But in this matter, truly we could do naught, anyhow. It is of the heart and soul._

Coldagnir tossed back his head in a fury of scarlet. _I wish I did not know any of this. And I wish I knew what Eru was thinking._

_None of us know that._ Elgalad gently touched Vanimórë's hand and stood. _I did not choose to love him, but I did choose this task, better that than to simply wait and watch. Thou didst choose also._

_I chose. And failed until thou didst come, and then, like thou, had to enact a part._

_I did not say I agreed with it, Coldagnir. But thou didst try. That is something. And thou wilt not fail this time._

_I did not know what I was going into._ His eyes turned inward. _How could any of us realize?_

Elgalad closed his hands about Coldagnir's shoulders. _But thou didst go._

_And thou didst bring me back. Well, let Gothmog believe me still afraid, still lesser than him until we meet. Let them all believe it._ Fire stirred through his hair.

Elgalad smiled, felt his own eager desire flare. For war. For _justice_  
 _Thou wilt not have long to wait. Only long enough for a boy to grow into a man, to take up the sword he bore in his former life._

OooOooO

The years turned. Although there were short, vicious skirmishes on the borders of Angmar they were, in most cases, against bands of orcs come out to hunt for food.

King Elessar had come more than once to Imladris, and sent warriors North, but Rhûn and the Harad were still a threat, and Andûril had seen more battles since the War of the Ring. Work still continued on the palace at Annûminas, but those who uprooted themselves from Gondor at this juncture were mostly the pioneers. Few wanted to live in the shadow of war. They had seen enough of it.

In Imladris, Beleg trained Túrin, as did Tindómion, Elladan and Elrohir until he could fight with a bow, an ax, a sword, and with his own body, unarmed. When he was older Vanimórë tutored him in his own arts of fighting, culled from the East. Túrin soaked it up as he had, Beleg said, in his first life.  
  
This time, if there were shadows on him, they were muted, thus far. He knew his father, since Carreg visited Imladris, but accepted that he was fostered by the Elves. He grew leggy, tall, black hair flowing down his back, eyes a luminous steel-grey. It seemed almost he absorbed the beauty of the Elves he lived with because, save for the rounded lobe of his ears, there was nothing to distinguish him from them. Adanedhel, the Elves of Nargothrond had called him. It was true now as it had been then.

From Fanari, he learned how to read and write, his numbers. And history. He knew well he grew up with living legends. Sometimes he even saw Fëanor or Fingolfin, and Gil-galad when they came to Imladris for council.  
  
  
The first person to notice the change in him was Beleg himself. Túrin had always been open, warmly affectionate and, because Beleg loved the young boy, he did not stint on returning it, not as a father, because he did not want to take Carreg's place, but as an uncle or trusted mentor. He accepted it as something woven through with old pain, (Túrin was the image of his namesake) but would never have drawn back from it. Whom could reject a child's love?

It changed when Túrin was seventeen, just as it had in Doriath, when boy grew toward man. He had almost reached his full, impressive height, slim, fit and strong. Beleg might have been reliving his old life.

These years were difficult for Mortals, he understood, tumultuous with burgeoning sexual appetites and tossing emotions. There were girls in the Dûnedain villages who were certainly willing to dally with a young man so beautiful. Túrin was never kept apart from his own race; the only place he did not go was the village where his parents lived, and his own father had requested that. Cell had given birth to a daughter, but her bitterness ran deep and Carreg did not want it spilling onto his son.

As yet, nothing had been said to Túrin of his destiny, but of possible marriage, Beleg did speak to Fanari, saying that he should not wed until the war against Angmar was over. Of that, Túrin knew everything, and was keen to go to battle, too keen, Beleg thought. But it would be wrong for him to take a wife and then leave her for war. Perhaps that was at the root of Túrin's restlessness, his flashes of hot-cold temper. A man must pour himself into some labour, and why not love?

As for simple friendships, Túrin had become close to Prince Eldarion when he came to Imladris with his father.  
Eldarion had conceived a worshipful adoration for Aredhel, considering her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, a fact which amused both Aredhel and Elessar. Túrin was quite willing to laugh about his new friend's besottedness, though he showed no great interest in any girl or woman. But Eldarion had come only once, and there was no-one else of Túrin's age in Imladris. The closest were were the young Men of Mordor, but they were separated from him by immortality, war, and horror, though they took him willingly enough into their company when they were in the valley.

But it was Beleg that Túrin turned to, Beleg whom had always, it seemed to him, been there.

  
But this day Túrin was simply angry with him. It was a roiling, complicated anger that he did not know what to do with. He had overheard, not meaning to, Beleg speaking with Fanari, caught the tail-end of the conversation that concerned him: “...I know he is Mortal, but he is young to want a wife,” Fanari said. “And I do not think he is very interested.”

“I see the way the young women look at him,” Beleg replied. “He looks back. He might well put a child into one of their bellies without even realizing what he is doing, and if he did, thou knowest how Men are. It would have to be marriage.”

Túrin stopped dead. A cold fury swept him, pulsing through his head. His face glowed with heat. He knew what Beleg referred to: their last visit to the closest Mannish village, an old settlement, where he had spent some time at the well speaking to a dark-haired girl. She had been friendly, in the reserved manner of the Dûnedain, and pretty, but he had not wanted to bed her.

He was not without appetites, and these last few years he had discovered the pleasure of release under his bedclothes, seeing no wrong in it, just as the Elves did not, raised in a place where sex was natural, and not just between men and women. Even as a boy he had witnessed men kissing other men, or women other women. It was not particularly overt; neither was it secret. Thus it did not seem wrong to Túrin to envisage himself with either sex.

But he was not stupid. War was coming, it had loomed over the valley like a high, cold cloud since his birth. It would be the height of irresponsibility to get a girl pregnant and then go to war. And certainly he would realize what he was doing! Neither was he ignorant.

But it was more than that. And how dare they speak of him as if his future was already planned, as if they knew what he wanted! He snapped around on his heel and ran through the gardens back to his room. He slammed the door shut behind him.

Beleg...Beleg had always been exquisitely careful with him. Túrin had never bathed with him in the communal baths as he did with others and, when he found his way into Beleg's bed to curl up against him, he had, after a certain age, always carried Túrin back to his own, although he would sit, sometimes all night, and watch him.

But there was none of the easy touching that the Elves displayed among themselves. Túrin had wondered if it was because he was Mortal, and shrank within at the implications, but now he thought it was because Beleg would never behave _inappropriately_.

Túrin would not find it at all inappropriate. Last autumn (Had it only been so short a time ago? Winter sun washed the walls of the valley, fell in cold, golden blocks onto the stone floor.) he had come in late from speaking to Fanari. Beleg's chamber was adjacent to his, so he had gone in to bid him goodnight. He was well aware by then that Elves did not sleep as Mortals did but rather when they chose, and that not as often, save when they were wounded. Beleg would likely still be awake. Lamplight shone from his bedroom.

The door was half-open and Beleg walked across the line of Túrin's vision. He was naked, hair flowing in a silver spill to his knees, damp from bathing. He looked like the carved statues that adorned Imladris, save more beautiful, every muscle a perfect poem as it moved under pale skin. His cock hung heavy, full, between his legs.

That time, too, Túrin had run, closed himself in his bedroom. Odd, chill shivers had racked him that night, a confused memory (or dream) of hard hands on him, of pain. But not Beleg's. Who would never hurt him, who scarcely touched him these days, save for a calming, friendly hand on back or shoulder.  
  
A few days after he dreamed again, of Beleg's mouth on his, and a pain and a glory, of him _inside_ Túrin. It was so intense, so real (summer stars shone through leaves, a forest sighed about him) he woke to orgasm, a muffled cry on his lips, his passage throbbing in time with the release, clenching and unclenching.

In a way, the dream banished his childhood, but when he looked at Beleg, almost expecting the Elf to _know_ , there was nothing but the polished calm that had once been so reassuring, but now was infuriating. Túrin could not avoid him, and when a concerned question struck at the fear-confusion-hunger within he lashed out: “Leave me be!” and ran from the man he loved. Because, yes, he loved Beleg, but that innocent emotion had been ambushed by something he both flinched from and, confusedly, desired.

He explored it in his mind as a man might gingerly edge his fingers around a wound. He _was_ a Man, and when he had first seen the soldiers of Gondor drilling, watched the men flirt with the village girls, he had wanted to be like them. Except...that was only emulation, a desire to appear _Manly._ And yet...that was not truly what he wanted, just what he thought he should be. What he longed for most of all, the most secret wish of his heart, was to be an Elf, to be Beleg's equal. He was not.

He shook his head, dashed away the angry tears from his eyes. He would go to the training grounds, not sulk here like a child.  
  
  
The grounds were busy all day, every day, even at night, for darkness was no bar to an Elven archer's sight. Many hailed him as he strode toward a vacant sword tree that rumbled on its axis. The teachings of all those who had drilled him echoed in his mind as he pushed away his temper, and drew his sword, letting himself flow into the moves.  
“Engage thine anger,” Tindómion had told him. “Use it. Never waste it.”

He was sweating lightly when he stopped, heard a voice say behind him: “Excellent.”

He knew the rich, exotic lilt, so different from the accentless, precise tones of Imladris, although it could not be said he knew the man himself. Vanimórë had trained him at whiles, but he was, to Túrin, an awesome figure, a god. He knew the stories, Fanari had ensured that, from the time the first Elf opened his eye to the ancient stars, until now.

Vanimórë and his companion (lover?) Elgalad came here each spring and summer, disappearing during the autumn and winter. They were often away in the north, at Prince Gil-galad's encampment or on Agmar's dark borders. Only occasionally did they spend any length of time in the valley.

The Dark Prince, they called him in the tales. He was a kind if exacting teacher, but remote as the peaks of the Hithaeglir. Once only had Túrin seen him smile, and it had struck him like sunrise. That smile could unlock winter, but it was rare. The beautiful face with those blazing purple eye was usually closed, keeping all its secrets. Elgalad, Beleg's descendant and very like him, was far easier to know.

“My Lord.” Túrin bowed.

“How art thou, Túrin?”

“Well, I thank thee.” He had become accustomed to people asking him that. As a Mortal he was subjected to illness and understood that one of the reasons he was taken out of Imladris to the Dûnedain villages was that he must be exposed to the infections that troubled Mortals, to make him more proof against them. His first attack of winter influenza had been miserable. But he was very seldom ill nowadays.

“Good. Shall we?” Vanimórë bore twin swords and invariably wore that at his back. They came out of their sheaths to kiss the air with light.

A leap of terror spiked through Túrin's body, not that Vanimórë would harm him, but of failure, of displeasing him. He lived among legends. His greatest fear was of disappointing them.

_Keep moving,_ he thought. _In a sword-fight, one never stops moving._

Vanimórë sped up, his blades singing out to connect with Túrin's blocks, until the air chimed with the stroke of metal against metal and all that existed in the world was the intention: to fight, to maneuver, to dodge, duck spin. Vanimórë was easy with him, he knew; they all were, and pride flared, so that he pushed into an sudden flurry of attack.

Vanimórë caught Túrin's blade between the cross of his own swords. The action jarred Túrin's arms to the bone.  
“Easy,” Vanimórë smiled, that lightning flash that lit the air. “I think there is little more to teach thee. Only battle can do that.”  
  
“Will it be soon, my Lord?” Túrin asked, leveling his hard breaths.

“Yes,” Vanimórë said. “Come, let us go to the baths.”

Like the training grounds, there were always people in the baths where the sulfurous waters ebbed and flowed, their scent overlaid by herbal soaps. Túrin, unused to such casual unconcern, undressed quickly and slid into the water. Vanimórë shed his leather gear more slowly, letting the thick black hair fall loose from its high tail.

Túrin flushed at the sight of him, the tattoos that curled over his arms and shoulders, down his back like scrollwork. Sauron's son, a Fëanorion on the wrong side of the sheets, and a god.  
  
“It will be thy birthday soon,” Vanimórë remarked. Not begetting day. Mortals counted the years from their birth, not their conception. “Elgalad and I came back early to celebrate it with thee.”  
  
“I am honoured, “ Túrin all but stammered. They were making much of it, his eighteenth birthday, a passage from boy to man, though the pure-blood folk of Gondor and Arnor came later to their adulthood. But he was not of that blood.

“It is my pleasure,” Vanimórë replied courteously, then spoke of what news he had of the war, of the South, of what passed in Imladris, as he washed.  
  
It was an odd meeting. Túrin could not help thinking there was more under it than appeared on the surface, and he had thought so several times in this past year, observing how people _watched_ him. As if they were waiting for him to do something. But, he wondered, what?  
  


OooOooO

“He should have remembered something by now,” Fanari said.

“If not now then it must be soon,” Vanimórë responded. “But I cannot nudge him. It will be...devastating enough as it is.”

Fanari walked back and forth, skirts rustling.  
“The time is close upon us, my Lord. Coldagnir brings news from Angmar, but thou knowest that.”

“Yes, they are stirring at last. War will break this summer. Perhaps sooner.”  
  
She clasped her arms about her as if cold, though the room was warm.  
“Wilt thou not give him thy gift?” she asked.

“When he knows naught?”

“Does that matter? Ask him!”

“When he comes to know himself, would he even want it? Or would he hate it? This was a Man proud of his heritage.”  
  
“A Man who swore a dying Oath on his love of an Elf.”

“Yes,” Vanimórë acknowledged. “He did that. But as Túrin Turambar.”

Elgalad, whom had been sitting in silence, the lamplight sliding over his silver hair, said quietly, “He h-has changed.”

“Inevitably, with his years,” Vanimórë agreed.

“Yes. He has become more...reserved,” Fanari nodded. “I do not want to pry, but he has been attracting much attention among the girls of the villages. We wondered, Beleg and I, if it were that.”

“Sex,” Vanimórë said. “At his age...yes. And Beleg?”  
  
“But Beleg will have it he wants to bed a girl, and I honestly do not think it,” she said. “Either that or Beleg is pushing him toward that. Túrin looks at him, and differently now, but does nothing.”  
  
“Beleg has been his mentor.” He smiled at Elgalad sadly. “It is not, I think, an easy step to make. For either.”

“It is a revelation,” Elgalad said, but glowed like a silvery candle. “But I did not find the transition h-hard.”

“Thou didst have no-one else to catch thine eye,” Vanimórë pointed out, and did not miss the tightening of Elgalad's lush mouth. “ And how does Beleg feel about Túrin?”  
  
Fanari looked at him. “Beleg loves a boy he has raised that looks like Túrin Turambar. He is _in love_ with a memory. I think he fears to fall in love again, and whom would not? Even if he knew, which he does not, I believe he would withhold.”  
  
“Yes, I think he would.” Vanimórë said gently, though he frowned. “But Túrin needs to remember. The last thing we want is his recalling his old life in the midst of battle. That would be too great a shock. Yet it is precisely what might bring it back.”

“I had thought of that, too,” Fanari said. “I truly...I want this to end well, my Lord. We do not want to lose him. I do not want to lose any of them, not again, although I know there will be deaths. What will happen? Dost thou know?”

“I wish I did,” he murmured. “But one thing I do know: once Túrin goes into battle against Angmar, and once Malantur, or whatever posses him, comes out, the barrier over it will be broken, and then Glorfindel and I can act. We will do all we can, but he came back for a reason, and I think we cannot take it from him, protect him. But his life and fate will be in his own hands, this time, not in Morgoth's.”  
  
It was the only comfort he could give to her, to himself.

OooOooO

Anglachel glowed black as obsidian, a silver light limning its edges. Lómion turned it carefully, examining it, then slid it into the sheath.  
It was time.

Imladris shone for Túrin's birthday celebration; only the young man himself seemed indifferent. Beleg and Fanari had not been the only ones to notice his withdrawal, his flashes of temper, though these were soon over and he always apologized contritely. But Lómion thought he understood, a stranger, an outlander in Gondolin as he had been. Though Túrin was loved, and Lómion had not been, he was still not one of them. And he was beginning to feel it, more now than when he was younger.

And there were other reasons, a shy glance cast along ever-broadening shoulders, eyes that looked, to snap away not wanting to be seen looking. He was feeling desire, and his youth and Mortal blood created a barrier he did not know how to bridge. It had been thus in Doriath, Beleg told him, though Túrin's passions were already twisted by his need to avenge his father, find his mother and sister. Sex had been secondary, always, to his own private vows.

The Hall was already bustling, and Túrin was there, dressed in deep red and black, his hair braided, sitting next to Beleg and Elgalad. A glass of wine stood next to him and his white skin was flushed along the line of its high cheekbones. He looked like a young Noldo prince. Vanimórë stood talking to Elladan and Elrohir. Gil-galad had come and was sitting beside Tindómion. Eärendil looked up as Lómion seated himself, and smiled brilliantly. His hand slid to rest on Lómion's knee.  
“It is ready?” he asked.

“It has been ready many years.” He had used Anglachel in skirmishes himself, but now it was to go to Túrin. “For more than two Ages.”

Fëanor, Fingolfin and Glorfindel swept in together, in a glitter of beauty and gems. With them, unexpectedly, was Finrod, whom had never yet been to Imladris, but his connection with Túrin ran through Nargothrond's stones. The young man blushed more deeply, looking confused, as though he could not think why so many kings and lords had come to honour his feast.

They gifted him: armour made by Fëanor's hands, the chain-mail delicate as silk, strong as thrice-forged iron, a shield stamped with an ornate helm, dagger, ax, bow, exquisite jewel-work, and then Lómion brought forth the sword. It seemed to purr in his hands.

“Thy namesake once bore this,” he said. “Anglachel, first forged by my father in Nan Elmoth.” For this he had come back, but perhaps for more, also. He was beginning to believe so.

Bewilderdly, Túrin grasped the hilt, drew it from its housing. He knew the sword, naturally. Beleg watched with concerned eyes, as did Lómion. He did not think the blade cursed, but dark it certainly was. It held a weight of heritage.  
  
Túrin's beautiful grey eyes widened. His arm jerked as if a shock ran through it, but he kept his grip. He swallowed.  
“It...” His head came up. “It...”  
  
“What?” Beleg asked quickly.  
  
“It...spoke to me.”

Silence dropped like nightfall. The flames in the hearth seethed, crackling.

“What did it say?”  
  
“It said... _Hail, Túrin_.”

OooOooO

He knew the history of Túrin Turambar, but he was _not_ that man. Yet the sword had called him by his name, as if it recognized him, a deep, cold voice resounding in his mind.

He had been shocked, though not terrified. He dwelt among Elves, knew there were magics and strangeness that wove through their lives. Nevertheless, he could not conceal his reaction. Fanari had made him a posset of hot milk, wine and honey that he protested made him feel like a child, yet he drank it, slid into a restless sleep. He knew Beleg was in the outer room, and drew some comfort from that, but he wanted to be alone.

  
Thunder broke like the wrath of the Valar, lighting the sky from horizon to horizon, and the rain fell, cold as nails, as heavy and as hard. It sluiced over his face, washed blood from the sword....and pounded long silver hair into black mud. Beleg's face, eyes closed, still held its last expression. Of love. Forgiveness. His death-wound gaped like an orc's leering mouth.  
  
Túrin's heart ripped open, a scream tore his throat, was lost in the crash of thunder as he dropped to his knees. A god's laughter came down the wind.

There had never been...such _pain_. The loss wrecked him, took his soul and sacrificed it upon the alter of eternity. Beleg was dead, _he was dead_ , and without knowing how much Túrin, in his pride and complicated, confused denial had loved him. He would never see Beleg again. _Nevernevernever_. The souls of Elves and Men went different ways after death. There was no world wide enough, no ocean deep enough, to swallow up his screams, his grief.  
  
“Túrin!”

He thrashed wildly, his hands coming into contact with warm, firm flesh, hair water-soft. His eyes, flaring wide, lit upon Beleg's face.  
  
Sobs racked his throat. He flung himself into the long, strong arms, buried his face in Beleg's chest.  
  
He knew how Beleg had died, but it had seemed a remote tale, healed by time and rebirth. He had never comprehended and could not know how the other Túrin, damned and beloved, had felt. Until now.  
  
“I saw thee die,” he brought out on a flood of tears.

“Túrin— ”

“I killed thee.”

“No. Anglachel.” Beleg smoothed his hair. “That sword. Lómion says it is not cursed, but it carries _history_. Memories. That is what thou art feeling.”

“ _I felt it._ ”

Beleg soothed him with hands and voice. “But I am here.” He smiled.

Túrin could not summon the breath to say it was the loss, the terrible finality of knowing he would never see Beleg again. He had not understood grief, though it lay under the eyes of every Elf in Imladris and beyond. It was the sudden, awful knowledge that one day they _would_ part. Forever.  
“Do not leave me,” he gasped. “I am not him, but I love thee.”  
  
“I am not going to leave thee,” Beleg reassured him, but as one would a child. Túrin clung for one stormy moment, then wrenched away, hurled himself from the bed.  
“But _I_ will leave _thee_ , will I not?” He threw back his tousled hair. “One day. And I cannot bear it.” Not again, rang a voice in his mind, the voice of a man long dead.

“My dear. ” Beleg's face was so beautiful in the drift of moonlight.  
  
“He loved thee,” Túrin threw at him, gulping. “Thou didst not believe it, did thee? Elgalad told me. Well, if I felt what _he_ did then, he loved thee. More than anything in his life.”  
  
Beleg's eyes went still as water in deep forest pools. “Thou art young,” he said carefully. “But, very well...I am sure he...regretted my death. I am sure it hurt him. We were dear companions. Sometimes more. And he killed me. It was an accident. I saw his face before I died.” He said it so matter-of-factly that Túrin had to press a hand to his chest. Where Beleg's wound had been. “But, love?” He shook his head. It was enough to break the heart all over again.

“Love.” The word was a challenge. “Memories, thou didst say Anglachel bore them. I saw them.”  
  
“If it is so,” Beleg said. “then it is so long past. He is at peace, I pray, wherever he is. That is all I ever wanted for him.”  
  
Túrin balled his fists, unable to find the words, and so he did not. He spoke with his body, crashing it, naked, into Beleg's. Not a kiss, a demand, grasping at firm muscle under the tunic, his lips seeking, frantic. Beleg froze. His mouth was nectar-sweet, firm, soft, and it melted Túrin to the core, then exploded fire into his groin. With a groan, he pressed himself closer. The backlash of horror was this: hunger.  
  
Beleg had frozen for a moment, now his hands came and gently put Túrin away from him.  
“No,” he said and his voice carried a weight of the Earth itself. “I will not use thee because thou art his image. I will not _use_ thee, my dear.”

Hot, furious, breathless, Túrin stared at him. His hand came up in a striking moment. Beleg caught his wrist. Their eyes locked.  
  
“I am not leaving thee in this state.” His voice was level. “But I will _not_ have thee because thou art like him. He was his own man, and so art thou.”  
  
Túrin panted and, from somewhere, he did not know where, gathered up the scattered remnants of his control.  
“Forgive me,” he said stiffly.  
  
Beleg said gravely, but his face softening: “There is nothing to forgive. It is Anglachel. I was concerned, I admit. Listen to me: there is a destiny for thee, but it is not his. Dost thou understand? All these years we have shaped thee for war. It is part of an old tale, but this is _thine_ , not his.”

“No. I do not understand.” He reached for a coverlet, drew it across his body.

“Thou hast his name, but he is gone. Men are not reborn. Yet thou wilt go to war as if thou wert him, and this time, the tale shall be writ anew.”  
  
“But there is no Morgoth Bauglir now, no curse...” He trailed off. “Carn Dûm? Yes. But...”  
  
“A Dark Lord of a sort.” Beleg's eyes were opaque. “Evil that we must rid the world of. But no, no curse.”  
  
Túrin sat down on the bed.  
  
“But no-one has ever asked thee if thou wouldst do this.”  
  
“Dost thou think I would let thee go to war without me?” He almost laughed, but tears strangled it in his throat. “When? When do we go?”  
  
“Vanimórë says this summer. But we begin to move our forces in the spring.”

“Then I am with thee, Beleg Cúthalion.” He stretched out a hand. Beleg took it. Túrin could not keep his own from trembling at the touch and whispered, “But for all that thou wilt not love me as thou loved him.”  
  
“I do love thee, but I will not take thee.” Oceans of time opened in Beleg's eyes, a grief beyond measure. “Not when I look into thine eyes and see another looking back. Loved me, thou sayest? Perhaps, had I not taken him then, he would. I made a mistake. He regretted it. We both did. And thou, thou art worth more than that. And so is his memory.”

OooOooO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of Magnificat Of The Damned Part III: Fire. Next we move on to Magnificat of the Damned Book IV: Anvil.  
> Thank you so much, any-one who's read up to this point :) Those who've commented: You've encouraged me so much, I can never thank you enough. You've just been so loyal and fantastic and brillaint. {{{Hugs}}} I do hope you will stick around for the finale story :)


End file.
